UBRARY.OF CONGRESS. 



@]^ajt. 0a5ti|ng|t l^a. 

ShGliuS--lB 

CNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






iff^ i^> 




DANIEL STEELE. 



Half-Hours with St. Paul 



OTHER BIBLE READINGS 



^ 



DANIEL STEELE, S.T.D. 

Recent Professor of New Testament Greek in Boston University. 

Author of " Love Enthroned," " Mile-Stone Papers," "Antinomianism 

Revived," "Commentaries on Leviticus, Numbers, and Joshua," 

AND Co-AuTHOR OF " PeOPLe's NeW TESTAMENT COM- 
MENTARY," AND Reviser of " Binney's Theo- 
logical Compend Improved." 




tiTfraa. 



BOSTON 

THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS COMPANY 

1895 






Copyright, 1894, 
By McDonald & Gill Company. 



TYPOGRAPHY AND ELECTROTYPING BY C. J. PETERS & SON, 
145 HIGH STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 



Hetitcators 



To My Two Sons in the Ministry of the Gospel, 
To My Pupils in Three Universities, 
To My People in Fifteen Pastorates, 

AND 

To All Saints who Hunger After Righteousness, 

THIS VOLUME, 

In a Consciousness of Its Defects, 

Is Prayerfully Inscribed, 

AS A TOKEN 

OF RESPECT AND IMPERISHABLE LOVE. 



PREFACE. 



In our studies in the New Testament, we have found 
two grounds for special thanksgiving. 

The first is that this precious volume is not limited 
to the four Gospels. It is true that these contain in 
germ form every truth of Christianity. But it is also 
true that they do not comprise, except in promise, any 
account of the marvellous completion of the system in 
the gift of the Paraclete, and that enlargement of privi- 
lege, deepening of experience, and perfection of spirit- 
ual life, which accompanied that crowning endowment 
of believers in Jesus Christ as the revelation of God. 
If there had been after his ascension no inspired and 
accredited record of the communication of God in the 
Holy Spirit, and of doctrines authoritatively unfolded 
and applied to human needs, the glorious gospel would 
have gone forth on its conquering career weighted 
with disabilities fatal to its success. It would have 
been like the angel of the Apocalypse trying to fly in 
the midst of heaven with clipped wings. But the Head 
of the church, in giving Christianity a good start, ex- 



VI PREFACE. 

tended its inspired record beyond the earthly life of its 
Divine Founder. In fact, the pentecostal dispensation 
occupies more than half of the New Testament. A 
second topic of gratitude is found in the capacity and 
character of the man providentially called to lift the 
gospel out of the entanglements of Judaism, to cut the 
umbilical cord of the infant evangel, and send it forth 
on its universal mission. 

Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, was not 
only qualified to state the gospel clearly and defend it 
heroically, but to exemplify perfectly the full extent of 
its saving power. More than this, he was not, through 
a false modesty, ashamed to disclose and record his 
own interior experiences ; first of conscious child-inno- 
cence (Rom. vii. 9), then of an irksome and worthless 
legalism (Rom. vii. 10-25), then of justification (Tim. 
i. 13), then the witness of the Spirit (Rom. viii. 15), 
followed by the inward revelation of Christ, — spiritual 
crucifixion and holy living. (Gal. i. 16; ii. 20; i Thess. 
ii. 10.) 

After the four Gospels, two-thirds of the residue of 
the New Testament are made up of the history of St. 
Paul's ministry and his epistles, including the letter to 
the Hebrews. More than a third of the entire volume 
relates to the Apostle to the Gentiles. This is a suffi- 
cient reason for ranking next to the life of Christ in 
the education of the Christian minister, the " Portrait 
of St. Paul," especially that of which John Fletcher is 



PREFACE. Vll 

the limner. I take this opportunity to acknowledge 
publicly that this book — now in the course of study 
for local preachers in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
— has had a large place among the influences which 
have moulded my religious character. A sense of in- 
debtedness to this great apostle has prompted me to 
prepare this series of Bible Readings, founded so 
largely on his epistles, "■ wherein are some things hard 
to be understood, which the ignorant and the unstead- 
fast wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto 
their own destruction." I have endeavored to expose 
this wresting and perversion of the truth in the inter- 
est of those who deny the possibility of holiness in this 
life. It is one of my aims in this book to present in 
popular form those results of modern scholarship which 
clear away misinterpretations alleged to lie against that 
perfection of the believer which he is commanded to 
seek and to obtain in the present life. 

We shall not finish our expression of special thanks- 
giving, till we have mentioned the longevity of the be- 
loved apostle, the latest surviving eye-witness of the 
incarnate Son of God, and to lift up his voice against 
errors which were corrupting the doctrines and ethics 
of the gospel of purity. 

It is our purpose to rescue a text in John's first 
epistle from the strange work to which it has been 
put, a work repugnant to John's character, and contra- 
dictory to the tenor of his teaching, — the doctrine that 



VUl PREFACE. 

sin as a conscious inward experience must be constantly 
confessed. 

Finally, we purpose to show, from both the Old Testa- 
ment and the New, that not a word has been inspired 
by the Holy Spirit which excuses or extenuates sin, and 
that the salvation which God has provided in the 
mediation of his Son, and the gift of his Spirit, reaches 
man's deepest need, delivering the persevering believer 
from the guilt of sin, the love of sin, and the pollution 
of sin. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Did St. Paul profess Holiness or Sin? i 

II. St. Paul's Use of Terms implying His Entire Sancti- 

FICATION 6 

III. St. Paul's First Prayer the Keynote of His Life . 12 

IV. St. Paul's Prayer for the Fulness of God ... 17 
V. St. Paul a Pendulum between Praise and Prayer . 26 

VI. St. Paul's Prayer and God's Fatherhood .... 31 

VII. For what did St. Paul ask Prayers for Himself? . 36 

VIII. St. Paul, the Model Christian 41 

IX. St. Paul's Love to His Enemies Perfect in Kind . 46 

X. St. Paul crucified with Christ 52 

XL St. Paul's Perfect Faith 57 

XII. Perverted Pauline Texts quoted against Holiness, 63 

XIII. Stumbling-Blocks removed 70 

XIV. St. Paul's Classification of the Corinthian Church 

in Two Classes 77 

XV. Prayers for the Sanctification of Believers ... 82 
XVI. St. Paul invents Stronger Words for Complete De- 
liverance FROM Sin 87 

XVII. St. Paul's New Words for Superabounding Grace . 93 
XVIII. St. Paul's New Phrases, — Without Sin, Without 

Stumbling, Without Spot, Without Offence . . 99 

XIX. St. Paul's "Election" is Unto Sanctification . . 105 

XX. St. Paul magnifies the Meaning of Perfection. . in 

ix 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXI. St. Paul's Doctrine of the Anointing . . . .118 
XXII. St. Paul arranges a Bouquet of Christian Graces, 123 

XXIII. St. Paul shows the Certainty of Spiritual 

Knowledge 128 

XXIV. Some of the Different Meanings of the Word 

"Flesh " 146 

XXV. Old Testament Stumbling-Blocks removed . . .151 

XXVI. Enlargement of Heart 156 

XXVII. Spiritual Circumcision 160 

XXVIII. The " Overcomeths " in the Revelation . . . 168 

XXIX. Why did Moses veil His Face? 176 

XXX. An Expository Sermon 180 

XXXI. Spiritual Darkness 192 

XXXII. Conscript Christians 197 

XXXIII. Semi-Spiritual Christians 202 

XXXIV. The Ten Spies— An Evil Report 209 

XXXV. Faith Healing 243 

XXXVI. St. John interpreted and vindicated 255 

XXXVII. Holiness and Humanity 271 

XXXVIII. The Qualities of a Successful Ministry .... 278 

XXXIX. The Full Assurance of Faith 307 



PROLOGUE. 



The sub-title of this book is a sufficient notifica- 
tion that it is not restricted to St. Paul's life and 
epistles. Moreover, it should be noted that this vol- 
ume is in no sense an exhaustive treatise on the 
many-sided character of the apostle to the Gentiles. 
The incidents in his remarkable life, the historic set- 
ting and purpose of his epistles, have been omitted. 
Our attention has been directed to only one aspect 
of his character, — his personal relation to evangel- 
ical perfection, and his instructions respecting holi- 
ness of heart and life. In clearing away erroneous 
interpretations, and in vindicating Paul's right to the 
title of saint in its highest sense, a holy man with- 
out consciousness of sin, we have necessarily been 
polemical and iterative. The frequency with which 
we have, in a few instances, reverted to the same 
topic, has a Pauline precedent in the so-called "joyful 
epistle" to the Philippians, where the theme of joy 
occurs nine times, and occasionally with double repe- 
tition as "the result of the apostle's special love for 



Xll PROLOGUE. 

his readers." — Meyer. We may add that this repe- 
tition of vital themes has also a sufficient Pauline 
apology : " Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord." 
''To write the same things to you, to me indeed is 
not grievous, but for you it is safe." 

The sermons not included in the title will be found 
to be supportive of the subject of the Bible Readings. 

The Reading on Faith Healing is designed to coini- 

teract a mischievous error into which some excellent 

Christians are falling. 

D. S. 

Milton, !Mass., Dec. i, 1894. 



HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



DID ST. PAUL PROFESS HOLINESS OR SIN? 

The importance of a correct answer to this question 
cannot be overestimated. St. Paul was chosen by our 
Lord Jesus, the sole author of the New Testament, to 
unfold in doctrinal form, after the gift of the Paraclete, 
those seed truths which Christ sowed in person. 

Those facts in the future work of the Holy Com- 
forter and Sanctifier which could not have been intel- 
ligibly described before the effusion of the Spirit, were 
reserved to be taught by our ascended and glorified 
Teacher, chiefly through the Apostle to the Gentiles. 
If he was not an example and witness of perfect deliv- 
erance from indwelling sin, there is little encouragement 
for an ordinary believer to hope for such a deliverance 
in this life. While it is true that Jesus Christ in the 
Gospels teaches perfect holiness as a duty, the argu- 
ment to prove that it was held up as an unattainable 
ideal would be immensely strengthened if his own 
apostles failed to actualize that ideal through the in- 
coming and abiding of the Holy Spirit as the Sanc- 
tifier. 



2 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

To prove that St. Paul was a possessor and professor 
of perfected holiness, we must scrutinize every word of 
his Epistles, the great seed-bed of Christian theology. 
Then we must candidly weigh every utterance in seem- 
ing contradiction to this high profession. We must 
study his prayers for others, and ascertain whether en- 
tire sanctihcation by the Spirit is not the burden of 
those petitions. We must then examine his requests 
for the prayers of the different churches in his own 
behalf, to ascertain whether he ever implies his own 
spiritual imperfection, or the existence of inbred sin in 
his own heart. 

The scope of the question in this series of Bible 
Readings is so broad that it will require us to sweep 
over nearly one-half of the New Testament. 

Another preliminary to our Biblical discussion of 
this question we note in the fact, that Paul's profes- 
sions of holiness are, in their form, modelled after those 
of his Lord and Master. There are two ways of pro- 
fessing holiness — the wise and the proper way, and the 
ostentatious and distasteful way. Christ did not say in 
a bold and offensive style, "I am perfectly holy." He 
might with truth have used these words ; but he would 
have been needlessly beclouding his own humility, and 
laying stumbling-blocks in the way of his hearers. At 
this point some modern advocates of Christian perfec- 
tion are at fault. In set phrase they profess more 
holiness in half an hour than Jesus Christ did in all 
his life. His profession was by a great variety of 
phrases, and almost always by implication : " Which 
of you convicteth me of sin .^ " "I always do those 
things that are pleasing to my Father." "He that 



DID ST. PAUL PROFESS HOLINESS OR SIN? 3 

seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is 
true, and no unrighteousness is in him. For the 
prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. 
I and my Father are one." These are samples of 
Christ's implied declaration of his sinlessness. Many 
expressions of Paul imply the complete extinction of 
sin as a principle in him. One of his modes of con- 
fessing indirectly perfect salvation through Christ, was 
to profess the possession of some one grace of Chris- 
tian perfection. For these graces grow in clusters on 
one stem. The declared presence of one is proof of 
the presence of all. Olshausen, in his note on Matt. 
V. 48, "Be ye therefore perfect," etc., says, "For the 
observance of one of these commandments in the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, nothing short of perfection is suf- 
ficient. Neither pure love nor mercy can be conceived 
alone in the human soul without the other qualities 
involved in perfection." What are the graces which 
always imply pure love } Let John Fletcher answer : 
" Christian perfection is a spiritual constellation made 
up of these gracious stars, — perfect repentance, perfect 
faith, perfect humility, perfect meekness, perfect self- 
denial, perfect resignation, perfect hope, perfect charity 
for our visible enemies as well as for our earthly rela- 
tions, and, above all, perfect love for our invisible God, 
through the explicit knowledge of our Mediator, Jesus 
Christ ; and as this last star, love, is always accompa- 
nied by all the others, as Jupiter is by his satellites, we 
frequently use, as St. John, the phrase perfect love 
instead of the word perfection ; understanding by it 
the pure love of God shed abroad in the hearts of es- 
tablished believers by the Holy Ghost." 



4 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

Another observation is that St. Paul, in numerous 
instances in detaihng his own experience, modestly 
uses the plural ''we," instead of the singular " I." He 
frequently begins with the plural, but in the intensity 
of his feeling changes to the singular ; for the emotions 
when stirred to their depths always say " I," as in all 
lyric poetry. Father E. T. Taylor used to say that 
he could tell a true Methodist as soon as he opened 
his mouth ; for he always says, *'I feel." Says Alford, 
''The attributes which especially characterize the ori- 
ginality of Paul as an author are powevy fulness, and 
warmth^ These beget informality of expression, rhe- 
torical and grammatical inaccuracy, and an appearance 
of egotism. Every one to whom Jesus Christ fulfils 
his promise, " I will manifest myself unto him," has 
an individuality of experience which, springing from 
a peculiar sense of proprietorship in him, justifies the 
use of the first person singular. He is mine. Mary 
Magdalene had so appropriated Christ that she thought 
she owned him. "They have taken away my Lord." 
"Tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take 
him away." Appropriating faith underscores the "me " 
and " my " in the Bible. Hence it must always appear 
to unbelieving reason both mystic and egotistic. But 
Paul always puts Christ first, not self, except when 
self is nailed to the cross. Then " I " stands first : "I 
have been crucified with Christ ; and it is no longer 
I that live." — {Gal. ii. 20, R. V. margin) 

Tholuck calls attention to the frequency and force 
of Paul's self-witness, as in Acts xx. 19, 20, " Serving 
the Lord with all (possible — Meyer) humility and 
with many tears and temptations, which befell me by 



DID ST. PAUL PROFESS HOLINESS OR SIN? 5 

the lying in wait of the Jews : and I kept back nothing 
that was profitable for you." Here are several grapes 
which are found only in the cluster of Christian per- 
fection, notably, " all possible humility," and perfect 
freedom from the fear of man, which fear prompts the 
prophecy of smooth things, rather than unpalatable 
and unpopular, yet profitable truths. 

Paul's fearlessness is a token of perfect love, that 
love which casts out all fear that hath torment ( \ John 
iv. 18). These two graces will be more extendedly 
discussed farther on in this series of Pauline Readings. 



HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



II. 



ST. PAUL'S USE OF TERMS IMPLYING HIS ENTIRE 
SANCTIFICATION. 

St. Paul uses many figurative expressions which 
manifestly imply entire sanctification. One of these 
is found in Rom. vi. 2, R, V., '' We who died to sin, 
how shall we any longer live therein." We note, in the 
first place, that the Pauline use of sin in the singular 
number designates rather a state than an act, or as 
Cremer says, "Sin is not merely the quality of an 
action, but a principle, manifesting itself in the con- 
duct of the subject." Now, what is implied in dying or 
being dead to anything } " To become indifferent, to 
cease to be subject," says Webster, ''as to die to pleas- 
ure or to sin." Chrysostom's note on this point is as 
truthful as it is terse, " To remain motionless as a 
corpse." To the same intent, yet more extended, is 
Alford's annotation, " Became as separate from and 
as apathetic towards sin as the dead corpse is separate 
from and apathetic towards the functions and stir of 
life." There can be no higher kind of sanctification 
on the earth. "The dying to sin," says Meyer, "is 
the abandonment of all life communion with it, experi- 
enced in himself by the convert. This moral change, 
which has taken place in him, has put an end to the 



ST. PAUL S USE OF TERMS IMPLYING SANCTIFICATION. / 

determining influence of sin over him ; in relation to it 
Jie has ceased to be still in life. This change," says 
Meyer "took place by baptism." To this we assent, 
if by baptism is meant not the bare symbol, but the 
thing signified thereby, the inward cleansing by the 
fulness of the Holy Ghost. 

There has been a vain attempt to. weaken Paul's 
declaration that he was dead to sin, by quoting his 
subsequent exhortation, '' Reckon ye also yourselves to 
be dead unto sin ; " as if this implied that sin was still 
living and active, but that we must, as the children say, 
" play that it is dead." This is paralleled by a new 
style of curing disease, ''think that the leprosy is dead, 
and it will no longer disfigure your body." But gen- 
uine cures of leprosy under this treatment are as rare 
as cures of leprous souls by reckoning them freed from 
the terrible disease of sin before the Holy Spirit has 
entirely sanctified them. 

What Paul means by reckoning ourselves dead to 
sin, is to treat ourselves, after the Holy Spirit has 
cleansed us from all sin by slaying the carnal nature, 
as we treat all dead persons ; make no provision for 
them, give them no food, nor house-room in our homes, 
exclude them from our society as offensive, cutting 
them off forever from all bodily communion. We are 
to be really dead to sin, and to live and act accordingly. 
Colonel Hadley of New York City, who was converted 
in the evening of the day following that in which he 
had swallowed sixty-three dram-shop drinks, was so 
mightily converted that he became in a moment dead 
to alcohol, his burning appetite being instantaneously 
removed. Ever since July 26, 1886, he has reckoned 



5 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

himself dead to the bottle, by keeping away from the 
saloon and by frequenting the house of prayer ; by giv- 
ing diligent heed to make his own and others election 
to eternal life sure, instead of, as before his conversion, 
canvassing the ten thousand groggeries of the Ameri- 
can metropolis for the election of some knavish politi- 
cian to a place where he can plunder the public treasury. 

God never commands us to reckon a falsehood as 
truth. If we are required to reckon ourselves dead un- 
to sin, it is because such a death is a fact in our past 
history. Moreover, in the same verse we are exhorted 
to reckon ourselves alive unto God, not when we are 
dead in trespasses and sins, but when we have been 
made alive by the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of 
life. We are to reckon a reality in both clauses of the 
injunction, — death unto sin, and life unto God. In 
Gal. ii. 19, St. Paul tells how this death and life are 
related to the law of God, " For I through the law died 
unto the law, that I might live unto God." 

In what sense did Paul die unto the law, so that he 
could aver that he was not under the law '^. In the in- 
terest of clear thought, practical ethics, and sound the- 
ology we answer, that every evangelical believer died to 
the law, (i) as the ground of his acceptance with God. 
He ceased to rely on his conformity to the law through 
all his past history, confessed himself guilty, and en- 
tered a new plea in the court of divine justice, "Jesus 
Christ the Son of God died for me — I receive him as 
both my Saviour and Lord, and through his mediation 
I beg for pardon." Paul was not under the law, and 
was dead to the law as the ground of justification for 
past sins, (2) Paul was dead to the law as a motive im- 



ST. PAUL S USE OF TERMS IMPLYING SANCTIFICATION. Q 

pelling to service. Love to the Lawgiver shed abroad 
in his heart had taken the place of fear of the penalty 
of the law. In this change there is nothing strange or 
revolutionary, since the interior essence of the divine 
law is love. 

(3) Paul died to the law as the instrument of sancti- 
fication. He had discovered that it could not cleanse 
the impurity which it revealed within. He had found 
in the gospel a personal purifier, procured through the 
atonement, the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven 
in Pentecostal power. He can do what neither "■ the 
blood of goats and calves," nor the most scrupulous 
conformity to the moral law, can do for a sin-stained 
soul. 

(4) But Paul was not antinomian ; he did not ''make 
void the moral law through faith, but rather he estab- 
lished the law ; for he was not dead to the law as the 

RULE OF LIFE. 

The iron rails can communicate no power to impel 
the train ; but they are indispensable to direct whatever 
force may be applied, whether gravity, steam, or elec- 
tricity. The absence of the rails at any given point 
of the track is ruin. Thus it is with the law of God. 
It has no power to impel or to attract the soul God- 
ward ; but its perpetual office is to guide the chariot- 
wheels of the divine love, impelling souls upward 
along the heavenly way. 

But Paul was not merely dead to sin constructively, 
as some teach, sin being under the sentence of death, 
yet really alive. He was really dead, because he was 
crucified. The cross was a certain, if not a summary, 
way of inflicting death. {Gal. ii. 20, R. V., Am. Com- 



lO HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

mittee), '' I have been crucified with Christ, and it is 
no longer I that live." This is a distinct confession of 
the extinction of the sin principle in him. It is not 
the old man tortured on the cross through scores of 
years, as some teach, till physical death ends the 
wretched life. More explicitly is this announced in 
Rom. vi. 6, " Knowing this, that our old man is cru- 
cified with him, that the body of sin might be de- 
stroyed." The Greek for destroy is never used by 
Paul in the sense of rendering inactive, as those assert 
who insist that the root of sin is not killed till it is 
plucked up by old Mortality himself. Says Cremer, 
who had no doctrinal partiality to warp his definition, 
" Elsewhere it signifies a putting out of activity, out of 
power, or effect ; but with St. Paul it is fo minihilate, 
to ptit an end to, to bring to nangJit.'^ If any expression 
could be stronger than this, it is found in the reciprocal 
crucifixion found in Gal. vi. 14, " By whom the world is 
crucified unto me, and I unto the world." ''This," says 
Bishop Ellicott, " is a forcible mode of expressing the 
utter cessation of all communion between the apostle 
and the world." Paul and the world, the sum total 
of all that is opposed to the spiritual reign of Christ, 
regard each other as dead. There is a reciprocal cruci- 
fixion. The crucified world has no power to awaken 
crucified cupidity. Hence no surprise is awakened by 
Paul's declaration that he is made free from the law 
of (the uniform tendency to) sin and (spiritual) death 
{Rom. viii. 2). The proclivity toward sin is not only 
removed, but an upward gravitation is substituted. As 
the cork set free at the bottom of the sea rapidly rises 
to the surface, so the soul that is " risen with Christ 



ST. PAULS USE OF TERMS IMPLYING SANCTIFICATION. II 

seeks those things which are above [the higher life], 
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." — 
Col. in. I. This is the way men dead to sin act ; for 
Paul proceeds to say, " For ye are dead, and your 
life is hid with Christ in God." 



12 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



III. 



ST. PAUL'S FIRST PRAYER THE KEYNOTE OF HIS 

LIFE. 

Stand near the closet door ajar of this eminent 
saint, and you will learn the secret of that heroic 
courage, that inexhaustible patience, and that wonder- 
ful career of toil, peril, and self-sacrifice, which have 
made him the greatest human factor in the establish- 
ment of the Christian Church. 

" When one that holds communion with the skies 
Has filled his urn where these pure waters rise, 
And once more mingles with us meaner things, - 
It is as though an angel shook his wings; 
Celestial fragrance fills the circuit wide. 
That tells us whence these odors are supplied." 

It is a means of grace to study the prayers of 
those who — to use the phrase of Father Taylor — 
" were on speaking terms with God." We imbibe 
their spirit. We begin to climb this ladder from the 
top of which they have stepped to a throne alongside 
the archangels. 

If the epistles of Paul are glorious, the prayers 
which abound in them are more glorious. All these 
recorded spiritual inspirations are pervaded by praises. 
They begin and end with thanksgivings. Praise paves 



PAUL'S FIRST PRAYER THE KEYNOTE OF HIS LIFE. I 3 

the way for prayer, and prayer casts up a highway for 
praise. In some churches they have praise-meetings 
on one day and prayer-meetings on another. Better 
mix them as did Paul. Praise will light up sombre 
prayer, and prayer will tone down jubilant praise. 

In all of Paul's prayers, there is no impracticable 
petition. He did not chase after unattainable ideals. 
When he prayed for the entire sanctification and per^ 
fection of the regenerate, he asked for blessings which 
believers might realize, through the power of the Holy 
Ghost, long before they reached their dying hour. 

Paul's first recorded prayer, Acts xxii. lo, '' What 
shall I do, Lord 'i " is the keynote of his whole Chris- 
tian life — activity and not a selfish quietism. It 
indicates that he did not have that conception of the 
new birth in which the sinner is passive, or rather, 
passive in fulfilling its conditions. That form of piety 
in which the Christian devotes himself exclusively to 
coddling himself, to constant morbid introspections 
of frames and feelings, will not be "found in the writ- 
ings of St. Paul. We are not so much inclined to 
this error as were many mediaeval Christians, who 
were taught that a soul which desires supreme good 
must remove, not only all sensual pleasures, but also 
all material things, silence every impulse of its mind 
and will, . and be concentrated and absorbed in God ; 
and that the monastery was most favorable for this 
result. Self-surrender to God is requisite to *' the 
stature of the fulness of Christ ; " but it must always 
be accompanied by perfect self-sacrifice for the salva- 
tion of our fellow-men. Love must be made perfect 
in both its Godward and manward aspects. It is a 



14 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

good omen when people are converted with the idea 
that salvation means vigorous, ceaseless work for others, 
and joining the church is enlisting in an army in front 
of an appalling rebellion. 

It has not pleased the Holy Spirit to record the 
prayers of Saul during his three days of blindness in 
Damascus, alluded to in Acts ix. ii, " Behold, he pray- 
eth." They were doubtless entreaties for forgiveness. 

That he found pardon, and the joy that attends it, 
may be seen by reading Rom. xv. 13 : ''Now the God 
of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that 
ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy 
Ghost." It occurred to Paul to use the phrase " God 
of hope," because the word '' hope " (^R. F.) as the 
privilege of the Gentiles, had just been written at the 
end of verse 12. God is thus called because he is 
the object of all hope. He who is without God is 
without hope in the world. His future is a dark cloud 
in which no rainbow is set. The prayer is for fulness 
of joy and peace through believing. There are no 
happy doubters, no jubilant unbelievers. The highest 
joy grows on the topmost bough of faith. The seed of 
joylessness is unbelief. 

Paul speaks of the '' joy of faith " (^Phil. i. 25) as its 
natural and necessary sequent. Hence, the antidote 
for a lack of joy, "that fruit of the Spirit," is "a little 
more faith in Jesus," in the words of that seraph in 
ebony, Amanda Smith. Faith is the only doorway for 
God to enter the soul, leading the blessed procession 
of beatitudes, — love, joy, and peace. How many try 
to admit them through the door of reason and fail. 
While his truth enters in throuo'h this door, he him- 



PAUL S FIRST PRAYER THE KEYNOTE OF HIS LIFE. I 5 

self can enter only through the door of faith. He is 
too lartre for our lo2:ic, but not for our faith. So there 
is a good chance to experience *' unspeakable joy " in 
the case of the countless multitudes who know nothing 
of the structure of a syllogism. " All joy and peace in 
believing " is for the ploughboy just spelling out 
the meaning of his New Testament, and for his sable 
mother who cannot even read at all, slavery having 
robbed her of the alphabet ; for the Hindu peasant 
toiling for seven cents a day ; and for the naked Congo 
African crushed by centuries of the darkest paganism. 
All they need to do is to hear the joyful sound of 
Jesus' name and believe. All the rest will follow 
in due season, — the spelling-book, the printing-press, 
clothing, the steam-engine, the post-office, the church, 
the college, and the hospital. Paul cannot speak of the 
blessedness of salvation by faith without the cumula- 
tion of phrases. The believer is to be filled with all 
joy and peace, and then to abound or overflow in hope, 
capping the climax with the introduction of the al- 
mighty power of the Holy Ghost as pledged to secure 
these blissful results of "believing." 

" Now I pray God that ye do no evil." — (2 Cor. xiii. 

7-9-) 

Paul does not pray for things impracticable and 

impossible. Hence, against the dictum of the West- 
minster Catechism, he expects this prayer to be an- 
swered, "that ye do no evil." The pardoned are saved 
from sinning. In verse 9 he goes a step farther : 
This also we pray for, even your perfecting." {R. V.) 
What does the much debated word "perfecting" mean 
in this text.? "Your complete furnishing, perfection 



l6 HALF -HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

in Christian morality." — I\Ieyer. "Complete sym- 
metry of Christian character." — Whedox. "Perfec- 
tion ofenerallv in all o-ood thinc;s." — Alford. "In 
the faith that worketh by love." — Wesley. 

Either the prayer is for the merely ideal and unat- 
tainable, and is thus an aggravation of the deepest 
spiritual needs of the Corinthians, or it was possible 
for divine grace, through their faith, to achieve this 
desirable- result in their characters. 



ST. PAULS PRAYER FOR THE FULNESS OF GOD. 1/ 



IV. 

ST. PAUL'S PRAYER FOR THE FULNESS OF GOD. 

Nowhere in the Scripture is the wonderfully ele- 
vating effect of the spirit of inspiration more evident 
than in the Epistle to the Ephesians. The writer is 
manifestly lifted above his natural plane of thought to 
height above height, making this Epistle by far the 
most difficult of all the writings of the Apostle to the 
Gentiles. Hence, it is a sealed book to the unspiritual 
man, however high his mere power of reason. He 
who with spirit-anointed vision pierces to the founda- 
tion of this Epistle will find that it rests upon a three- 
fold basis — (i) tJie will of the Father as the origin of 
the church ; (2) tJie atonement of the Son as the ground 
of our adoption ; and (3) life in the Holy Spirit as the 
scope and end of the gospel. 

The prayer in the third chapter of this Epistle re- 
lates to the last of these foundation-stones. It pre- 
supposes repentance, justification, regeneration, and 
entire sanctification. Hence it is a model prayer for 
those in whom sin has been destroyed. The three- 
fold aim of such a prayer is, (i) the strengthening of 
the inner man for a clearer intellectual knowledge of 
Christ, the revelation of God ; (2) the abiding of the 
Spirit, the communication of God; and (3) the fulness 
of divine glory, or all the fulness of God. 



1 8 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

CJiap. Hi. 14-21. The cause for which he bows his 
knees is a repetition of the first verse. Hence it 
refers to the last words of chapter ii., the true temple 
of the Father, built in the Son, inhabited by the 
Spirit. Paul prays that each believer, and the aggre- 
gate of all the believers in Ephesus, may become such 
a holy temple. The first petition is that they might 
be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner 
man. The vessel is too weak and too small to contain 
all that God desires to pour into it. It must be en- 
larged and strengthened. The Spirit is the agent fcr 
this work. The measure is according to the riches of 
his glory. A king gives like a king, a God works like a 
God. He wants to do his most glorious work in every 
believing soul. This he accomplishes when the human 
conditions are fulfilled. The chief condition is faith as 
expressed in verse 17. 

"That Christ may take up his abode in your hearts." 
This rendering gives the force of the aorist tense, 
" that Christ may take up his lasting abode." — Alford 
and Ellicott. This implies, not a destitution of the 
Spirit who represents Christ, but rather that the soul 
has not yet become his permanent abode. 

Meyer says that opposed to this taking up of the 
lasting abode of Christ, is a transient reception of the 
Holy Spirit, as in Gal. Hi. 3, " Having begun in 
the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh } " 
This is a searching question which many modern be- 
lievers of the Galatian type would do well seriously 
to ponder. Their eager pursuit of worldly pleasures, 
their dallying with temptation, their inquiry. What 
harm in the dance, the drama, and the card-party.'^ — 



ST. PAULS PRAYER FOR THE FULNESS OF GOD. IQ 

all too painfully prove that the Holy Comforter, the 
artesian well of water, is not in them springing up into 
everlasting life. They could not answer as did Igna- 
tius when, on his trial, he was asked by the emperor, 
"What is the meaning of your name.'*" — " Theoph- 
orus " (God-bearer) — he promptly replied, " he who 
has Christ in his breast." Oh that there were more of 
these conscious Christophers bearing Christ about in 
the street, the car, the shop, the field, and the mart ! 

Men and women of this sort are never at a discount 
in God's reckoning. They are the salt of the earth, 
— yea, of the church too. 

It is instructive to note that Christ dwells only in 
the vital centre of our being, not in the tongue, which 
would produce only a mouth religion, not in the hand, 
which would make a lifeless routine of works, but in 
the heart, which rules the tongue, the hands, and the 
feet, making them the instruments of a glad and will- 
ing service. He never takes up his abode in the brain 
alone ; but it is his purpose, after taking possession of 
the heart, to extend his conquest to the head. To 
reverse this order would reduce Christianity to a theory 
instead of a joyful experience. Alas, too many have 
proved the truth of this declaration. A Christ flitting 
through the intellect now and then, gives no such 
repose of soul as the Christ who becomes a permanent 
resident of the heart, year after year, and decade after 
decade. The beauty of this is, that he who carries 
him through life will have his presence in death. A 
good lady in a love-feast once said, " I mean to carry 
heaven with me through life, then I shall be sure of it 
at the end of my journey." 



20 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

The door through which Christ comes in and takes 
up his abode in the heart is faith. Faith widens the 
soul so that more and more can be grasped. It has 
been said that "more depends upon taking in faith 
than upon giving and doing in love. For the more we 
take of the fulness of God, the more we can give." 
Faith is the inner man's vision, his reason, and his 
light. Such faith is possible when the heart is purged 
of sin. Then the eye is purged of film. The pure in. 
heart see God. Only they have a spiritual perception 
which makes him real. 

"Ye having been rooted and grounded in love," 
rooted like a tree and grounded like a building. Those 
for whom Paul prays are to become established in love 
through the strengthening of their inner man by means 
of the Spirit, and through Christ's taking up his per- 
manent abode in their hearts. Being established in 
love, they are able to have some realization of the 
greatness of the love of Christ. Love has eyes for the 
perception of spiritual realities. In Christianity he 
that loveth not knoweth not. The reverse is true in' 
respect to things of this world. They must be known 
before they can be loved. 

" In order that ye may be fully able [Alford] to 
apprehend \_R. V.~\ with all saints." The tense of the 
verb "apprehend," Ellicott suggests, implies the single- 
ness of the act, as if through the instantaneous per- 
fecting of love, there comes a sudden revelation of God 
to the soul, in the face of his adorable Son revealed by 
the Holy Spirit. 

This is the highest and most precious knowledge, for 
the excellency of which Paul counts all things to be 



ST. PAULS PRAYER FOR THE FULNESS OF GOD. 21 

loss, prefacing his declaration with a "yea, verily," as 
if he thought he had made a splendid bargain. This 
knowledge, which is so personal that Paul seems in the 
words, '' My Lord," to be its exclusive possessor, he 
now desires only as the common property of "all 
saints," because he has found out that Christ can give 
himself entire and undivided to every perfect believer. 
Blessed paradox ! I do not wonder that an old saint in 
Wales declared that "Jesus Christ was a Welshman, 
because he always speaks Welsh to me." 

When he prays that the believers in Ephesus may 
be fully able to apprehend (R. V.) with all saints, he 
hints at the idea of the equal privilege of all, ascribing 
to the humblest Christian the highest and most pre- 
cious knowledge {Phil. Hi. 8.). Thus men at the top of 
their transfigured natures stand on a level in the de- 
mocracy of saintship, rather of kingship; for "He made 
us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and 
Father." — {Rev. i. 6, R. V.) The distinguishing 
privilege of the priest is access to God. 

The four dimensions borrowed from the relations of 
space — though there are properly but three — are in- 
tended to express that comprehensive knowledge of all 
essential truths which St. John includes in the anoint- 
ing of the Spirit, which teaches all things necessary to 
life and godliness. " And to know the knowledge- 
surpassing love of Christ." Here we have acutely 
conjoined contraries purposely devised by the great 
apostle to show the immense superiority of heart 
knowledge to head knowledge. Indeed, mental science 
has no place for the former in its enumeration of man's 
cognitive faculties. It recognizes only the intellect. 



22 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

This is correct so far as the unregenerate man is con- 
cerned, for " spiritual things are spiritually discerned." 
The love of Christ is a spiritual thing. By these words 
we do not understand our love to Christ, but a vivid 
realization of his boundless love to us who evangeli- 
cally believe. 

Paul reaches the climax when he prays, " That ye 
may be filled unto all the fulness of God." (R. V.) 

" Love strong as death, nay, stronger; 
Love mightier than the grave; 
Broad as the earth, and longer 
Than ocean's widest wave. 

This is the love that sought us, 
This is the love that bought us, 
This is the love that brought us 

To gladdest days from saddest night, 

From deepest shame to glory bright, 

From depths of death to life's fair height, 

From darkness to the joy of light." 

BONAR. 

It becomes us not to dogmatize with confidence, but 
to speak with modesty on a theme so high and difficult. 
We would suggest that the petition is that ye may be so 
filled with the Holy Spirit and with all his gifts and 
graces, as God is filled. This is expressed in a manda- 
tory form by Christ (^Matt. v. 48), " Be ye also perfect, 
as your heavenly Father is perfect." Something more 
than initial Christian life is here prayed for by Paul in 
behalf of the church in Ephesus. The new birth be- 
gins with the love of God in the heart, shed abroad by 
the Holy Spirit. But such a heart is narrow and needs 
enlargement ; it has remaining defilements which need 
cleansing. So there are steps and intervals between 



ST. PAUL S PRAYER FOR THE FULNESS OF GOD. 23 

spiritual infancy and manhood. The crowning act of 
this process of development is here denoted by the 
being filled with all the fulness of God. Elsewhere it 
is expressed by the prayer, " The God of peace himself 
sanctify you wholly." — (i TJiess. v. 23, R. K) Both the 
filling and the sanctifying are in grammatical forms 
which imply singleness of action, however long the 
preparation may have been. 

Who can adequately unfold the wealth of meaning in 
the magnificent ascription with which this inspired 
prayer concludes ? Paul, having prayed for surpassingly 
excellent blessings for the Ephesians, with a wisdom 
more than human, lays in their minds a foundation for 
faith, by his striking portrayal of the almighty power of 
him who hears and answers all true prayer offered in 
the name of his Son. This thought, left as the last 
impression on the mind of the reader, is the very seed 
out of which faith will spring up. Let the Christian 
who is praying, " Lord, increase my faith," help the 
Lord answer this prayer by an analysis and a minute 
study of this wonderful doxology. Note the strength 
of the terms indicating the ability of God to impart 
all the petitions of this comprehensive prayer. He is 
able to do not only all we ask or even think, but 
"above" this; and not only above, but "abundantly," 
overflowingly "above." When Paul had written this, 
the thought of how much God had done for him caused 
him to strengthen the expression by the word " exceed- 
ing," interlined, perhaps, before " abundantly." Thus, 
the original idea of ability is, as the mathematicians 
would say, raised to the third power by being thus 
twice multiplied into itself. We are then invited to 



24 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

contemplate the measure, the yardstick if you please, 
by which God works " according to the power that 
worketh in us." All the past manifestations of his om- 
nipotence in creation, providence, and redemption, are 
only specimens of that power which stands ready to do 
the bidding of human faith, pleading the infinite merit 
of the adorable Son of God, repeating the miracle of 
the creation of the sun in the heavens with glories 
more transcendent ; " For God, who commanded light 
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to 
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in 
the face of Jesus Christ." 

"To him," God the Father, "be the glory," the 
whole glory accruing from all his gracious dealings, 
"in the church, the sphere of God's glory before men 
and angels too." Ep/i. in. lo, R. V., "To the intent 
that now unto the principalities and the powers in 
the heavenly places might be made known through the 
church, the manifold wisdom of God." Thanks to the 
Revision for bringing out to English readers the aston- 
ishing idea that archangels. Cherubim and Seraphim, 
are pupils studying the manifold wisdom of God, and 
using the Christian Church as their lesson-book. All 
of his moral attributes — love, holiness, justice, wisdom, 
and truth — are most clearly revealed in the heavenly 
places when they are seen in the mirror of a sanctified 
church on the earth. From this conception in the 
mind of Paul, the sublime prayer in this chapter is a 
natural sequence. Let every believer who aspires after 
the highest spirituality daily repeat it. Let every 
pastor teach his church to pray this prayer in concert 
in the prayer-meetings, and every leader teach his class 



ST. PAUL S PRAYER FOR THE FULNESS OF GOD. 25 

to repeat it in every class-meeting, for their own good, 
and for the instruction of the archangels on their 
thrones above. 

*' Yes, measure Love when thou canst tell 
The lands where seraphs have not trod, 
The heights of heaven, the depths of hell, 
And lay thy finite measuring-rod 
On the infinitude of God." 

T. C. Upham. 



HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



V. 



ST. PAUL A PENDULUM BETWEEN PRAISE AND 
PRAYER. 

In the higher states of Christian experience, there 
is a blending of prayer and praise. This is noticeable 
in St. Paul. If he begins with thanksgiving, he ends 
in prayer ; if he begins with prayer, he ends with praise. 
Phil. t. 3, 4, *' I thank my God upon every remem- 
brance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you 
all making request with joy." There is no drudgery 
in true prayer. He to whom communion with God 
the Father is a task has not advanced far in grace. 
It is very evident that the fulness of the spirit of grace 
and supplication has not been poured upon him. All 
who through faith in Christ have boldness and access 
or introduction to God " make requests with joy." All 
who come in their own name approach the throne of 
grace with fear and servility. To them prayer is a sad 
necessity, and not a delight transcending all the pleas- 
ures of sense. Bishop Janes had full sympathy with 
St. Paul in the joyfulness of prayer. To his room-mate 
who had slept an hour, and awakening saw the bishop 
still on his knees breathing out his silent supplications, 
and asked why he prayed so long, he replied, " I delight 
in prayer." It was the recreation of his soul and 



ST. PAUL BETWEEN PRAISE AND PRAYER. 2/ 

body after a day of toil in conference and cabinet. 
How far in tlie opposite extreme is the practice of 
the Papal priests to prescribe prayer as a penance and 
a penalty, imposing so many Pater Nosters and Ava 
Marias after the confession of sins. 

There cannot be a more sad departure from the true 
spirit of prayer than to treat it as a punishment. We 
often feel like weeping over the millions of benighted 
souls to whom the gladness of prayer is perverted into 
sadness through sacerdotal despotism. 

Yet young Christians to whom prayer is not a 
delight should be encouraged to persevere in the use 
of this means of grace, and to pray for such a baptism 
of the spirit and fulness of love as will change its irk- 
someness into an unspeakable joy. Thousands can 
attest the possibility of such a sudden transforma- 
tion. They have lived months and years in a state of 
communion with God so intimate and delicious that, 
whenever they bow the knee to pray, hallelujahs spon- 
taneously burst from their lips. This shows that in the 
quality of their piety they are approaching the heavenly 
state where prayer will be completely lost in praise. 

In verse 9 Paul says, " And this I pray, that your 
love may abound yet more in knowledge and in all dis- 
cernment {R. v.). There is one element of Christian 
character which can never exist in excess, yea, there 
can never be enough to satisfy its possessor. This is 
love. It may be perfect in kind, that is, free from all 
impurities, but it can never be perfect in degree. 

" Insatiate to this spring I fly, 
I drink and yet am ever dry; 
Ah, who against his charms is proof? 
Ah, who that loves can love enough? " 



28 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

This capacity for growtli in love will continue through 
life, leap over the grave, and unfoU itself through the 
ceaseless cycles of eternity. Growth is one of the 
elements of heavenly bliss. 

Yet it is not for an increase of their love absolutely 
as an end in itself that the apostle prayed, for love 
alone might become the sport of every impulse ; but it 
was for its increase as the means to two important yet 
subordinate ends — first a sound, certain and full knowl- 
edge {epignosis) of the truth, and secondly a keen 
spiritual discernment to distinguish between things 
that are different, either between rio^ht and wrong-, or 
between different degrees of good and their contraries. 
The whole force of temptation consists in the skill of 
the tempter to make evil appear in the guise of good. 
Triumph over temptation lies largely in the ability to 
pierce through the disguise, to discover the cloven foot 
in the patent-leather shoe. Beyond all price is a thor- 
ough knowledge of theoretical and practical truth. It 
is a coat of mail amid the arrows of temptation. Hence 
the most extended definition of Christian perfection is 
found in Heb. v. 14, " But solid food is for perfect m,en, 
even those who by reason of use [habit] have their 
[spiritual] perceptions exercised to discern good and 
evil." 

Love is the medium through which the spiritual eye 
clearly discerns, if it be not that eye itself, as St. John 
intimates, '' He that loveth not, knoweth not God." 
Ever-increasing love is ever-increasing spiritual discern- 
ment of the true nature, good or bad, of each circum- 
stance, case, or object which experience may present. 
A sensitively correct moral perception cannot be too 



ST. PAUL BETWEEN PRAISE AND PRAYER. 29 

highly prized. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit improved 
and intensified by use. It is the opinion of Mr. Whewell, 
a distinguished English moral philosopher, that our 
power of moral discrimination may become so acute 
as to discern a moral element in acts now consid- 
ered morally indifferent, such as the question shall I 
ride to town or walk ; shall I .wear boots or shoes, 
gloves or mittens ; take an umbrella or run the risk 
of rain. If there is a moral element at the bottom 
of all these apparently trivial choices, it is evident that 
it is the design of God that we should acquire a spirit- 
ual perspicacity sharp enough to discern it. 

But spiritual perception is not an end in itself, but 
only a means to an ultimate end, right conduct and 
holy character, " that ye may be sincere and without 
offence against the day of Christ." The common ex- 
planation of the original word for " sincere " is pure 
and unsullied to such a degree as to bear examination 
in the full splendor of the solar rays. The same idea 
occurs in St. Jude's striking description, '' Now unto 
him that is able to keep you from stumbling \sine pec- 
cato, without sin — the Vulgate Version\ and to pre- 
sent you faultless," not in some twilight region, ''but 
before the presence of his glory." This is the aim 
of the gospel of Christ, to present us without defect 
or fault, spot or fleck, under the intense splendors of 
God's holiness ; and it is the office of the Holy Spirit to 
complete such characters in this life, not in the hour 
of death, nor in purgatorial fires after death, as Dr. 
Briggs hints when he suggests that the believer's sanc- 
tification may be completed in the intermediate state. 
This intimates a slur upon the Pentecostal dispensa- 



30 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

tion. ''Being filled with the fruits of righteousness," 
the words ''sincere and without offence" are a nega- 
tive description of the workmanship of the Sanctifier. 
The positive side is now presented in its fullest and 
completest development. Righteousness is the origi- 
nating cause of the fruits which richly adorn the char- 
acter of the mature believer. They are essentially the 
same as the fruit of the Spirit, enumerated in Gal. v. 22, 
and the fruit of the light, Eph. v. 9, R. V. We are 
wild and worthless olive-trees, until we are engrafted 
into Christ, who by means of his living root renders us 
fruitful trees " unto the praise and glory of God." As 
the fruitless orchard is the shame and poverty of its 
owner, who has suffered the palmer-worm to devour it, 
so a fruitful orchard is the honor and wealth of its 
proprietor, attesting his patient care and toil. How 
ennobling and inspiring the thought that the declara- 
tive glory of the great God may be enhanced by us 
dwellers in houses of clay. With what dignity God 
has clothed us, that we should be reflectors on the 
earth of the glory of God that fills the heavens. Look- 
ing down upon sin from the summit of this great 
thought, how despicable it appears, — 

" A thing most unsightly, most forlorn, most sad." 

This revenue of praise which flows upward to heaven 
from sanctified character on earth is "by Jesus Christ," 
by the indwelling and working of the Holy Spirit whom 
he sends from the Father. " Glory be to the Father, 
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen." 



ST. PAULS PRAYER AND GODS FATHERHOOD. 3 I 



VI. 

ST. PAUL'S PRAYER AND GOD'S FATHERHOOD. 

If there were fluctuations in the emotional experi- 
ences of St. Paul, so that he was more joyful at one 
time than at another, it is natural for us to expect to 
find traces of them in his Epistles. When he wrote to 
the Ephesians he must have been in a very exalted and 
ecstatic mood. He sees how broad and boundless is 
the ocean of God's love, as Faber sees it : — 

''Angelic spirits, countless souls, 
Of Thee have drunk their fill ; 
And to eternity will drink 
Thy joy and glory still." 

St. Paul's prayers are the outpourings of a full soul. 
The vast volume of water in the mouth of the Orinoco 
River led its discoverer, Columbus, to infer that it must 
be the outflow of a continent, not of a small island. 
So these prayers, so deep and broad, must flow from a 
continent of grace. 

Let us dip our goblet into one of these rivers, {EpJi. 
i. 16-19). The terms in which God is spoken of as 
'' the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 
Glory," are helps to our faith ; they help us to conceive 
of him by removing the vagueness and unthinkableness 



32 - HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

of an infinite spirit. When a little boy, the writer re- 
calls the prayer of a young circuit rider for the con- 
version of seekers at the altar. His address to GoJ 
did not help their faith to lay hold of him, " O thou 
whose centre is everywhere and circumference is no- 
where, save these penitent sinners." How different 
were the great apostle's ascriptions. When God is 
spoken of as the Father of Jesus Christ, he is brought 
near, so that we may touch him with the hand of faith. 
"The Father" to whom the *' glory" belongs is the 
Father of all regenerate souls. Thus St. Paul, our 
prayer-leader, gives us a good fulcrum for the lever of 
supplication. Let us now look at the things for which 
he prays: **The Spirit of wisdom and revelation," 
that is, the Spirit who works wisdom and reveals 
spiritual realities, especially giving saving efficacy to di- 
vine truths. This is not merely a momentary glimpse 
at the time of the new birth, but a continued bestowal 
of the same spiritual intuition for the ^v^x -increasing 
enlightenment of Christians. '' In the full knowledge 
of him " is Alford's rendering of the strengthened 
word for knowledge. Our knowledge of God cannot 
be full in the sense of exhaustive, but it can be full in 
the sense of assurance and certainty. We cannot com- 
prehend God, but we may apprehend him. "We can- 
not," says Gladstone, " embrace the mountain with our 
arms, but we can touch it with our hands." This is 
his common-sense answer to the agnostics who insist 
that God is unknown and unknowable, because we are 
finite and he is infinite. There is nothing of which 
we have exhaustive knowledge. There are questions 
about the smallest sand-grain which the wisest philoso- 
phers cannot answer. 



ST. PAUL S PRAYER AND GOD S FATHERHOOD. 33 

The knowledge here spoken of is not philosophical, 
but experimental and intuitive ; " penetrating and ex- 
act" — (Meyer). Hence it is satisfactory. Eph. i. i8, 
''The eyes of your heart S^R. V.] being enlightened," 
is a phrase of the same import with ''full knowledge." 
This is the effect of the incoming and abiding of the 
Comforter in pentecostal fulness. This kind of spirit- 
ual eyesight, this knowledge far superior to all other, 
may be possessed by the most obscure and illiterate 
chattel slave (chapter vi. 5) in Ephesus. For St. Paul 
does not show respect of persons when he bows before 
the impartial God in supplication for the brethren. 
"That ye may know what," or rather, how great "is 
the hope of his calling ; " i.e., what a great and glorious 
hope is given to the believer. Hope always grasps fu- 
ture good. 

The citizenship of Christians is in heaven (Pkil. 
Hi, 20.), whither all their thoughts and desires flow as 
the impetuous torrents seek the sea, to use a figure 
from Madame Guy on. The object of hope is also ex- 
pressed by the word "glory," the essential character- 
istic of gospel salvation, the foregleams of which in 
scattered rays fall on us here, while the full-orbed 
splendor is reserved for us when we shall see King 
Jesus in his majesty descending from heaven in his 
personal second coming. 

But what is meant by " his inheritance in the 
saints " } Christ is to receive from the Father the 
riches or transcendent excellence of glory among 
the saints ; i.e., the community of believers will be 
the subjects of this bliss, and they will be the sphere 
outside of which the riches of glory will not be 
found, not even among the angels. 



34 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

The last clause of the prayer is, " And what is the 
exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who be- 
lieve." Here is a Pauline accumulation of terms, mag- 
nifying power. It is not only greatness, but exceeding 
greatness of his power for which Paul prays that the 
believer may have an experimental knowledge. The 
power of God over matter has no limit but his wisdom. 
But the power of God in the realm of spiritual intelli- 
gences endowed with freedom is limited by the perverse 
use of that freedom. The grace of God which would 
transfigure willing souls from all sinfulness to the 
beauty of all holiness, stands powerless before the 
stubborn will. Says Jesus to the city over which he 
wept {Matt, xxiii. 37), " I would, but ye would not." 
No sinner can be saved without the concurrence of two 
wills. It is the same with the different degrees of sal- 
vation. Each uplift is by a faith which carries the will 
into deeper and deeper subjection to the divine will. 
Then there will be greater and greater revelations of 
the transforming power of God, from grace to grace 
here, and from glory to glory hereafter. 

Paul does not conclude his prayer without indicating 
the measure of that power by citing a historical in- 
stance of its exercise in that greatest event in the an- 
nals of time, — 'the resurrection of Christ. The same 
power that lifted Christ from the tomb, and set him 
at the right hand of his Father as the sharer of his 
throne, is now available to lift every willing soul from 
the grave of sin, and to enthrone him with the arch- 
angels, yea, even to seat him by the side of Jesus Christ 
on his throne, if he will, by the use of grace divine, over 
come, as the Son of God overcame {Rev. Hi. 21). What 



ST. PAULS PRAYER AND GODS FATHERHOOD. 35 

an encouragement to faith is found in this recorded 
prayer. 

Reader, if you wish to learn the art of believing, 
study this prayer on your knees. A Quaker woman 
of my acquaintance, seeking God's full salvation, once 
said to that eminent Christian lady,^ *' I wish thou 
wouldst believe out loud so that I, kneeling by thy 
side, may hear thee, and imitate thee, and learn to be- 
lieve." Such a favor could not be given. But it is the 
office of the Holy Spirit to help us by revealing Christ 
to the interior eye, and guiding the hand stretched out 
to touch the hem of his garment. This is better than 
hearing another believe. 

1 Mrs. Inskip. 



36 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



VII. 

FOR WHAT DID ST. PAUL ASK PRAYERS FOR 
HIMSELF ? 

The inner life of every person is inscrutable. We 
do not see the real self of our most intimate friend. 
But there are orifices through which the hidden man 
gleams forth. The mouth is one of these. " Out of 
the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." The 
requests for prayer for themselves which Christians 
make, reveal their spiritual condition. In our social 
meetings the usual requests indicate the reverse of 
evangelical perfection. These are fair specimens : 
" Pray that I may overcome the evil of my heart ; " 
" Pray that my besetting sin may not conquer me, and 
that I may be faithful and reach heaven at last ; " 
'' Pray that I may be victorious over inbred sin ; " " Pray 
that I may be willing to do or to suffer God's will;" 
'' I sin every day ; pray that I may be kept from sinning, 
and that I may be sanctified wholly." These requests 
are proof positive that the blood of Jesus Christ has not 
cleansed them from all sin — actual and original. They 
indicate that the regenerate life has not reached the 
point where the last touch of the new creation has 
purged away sin, and brought out completely the lost 
moral image of God. 



FOR WHAT DID ST. PAUL ASK PRAYERS ? 37 

Let US now see what the Apostle to the Gentiles in- 
variably wishes the churches should ask for him, for 
he goes forward for prayers in every epistle. Turn to 

Rom. XV. 30-32, ''Now I beseech you, brethren, for 
the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the 
Spirit [the love inspired by the Spirit — Rom. v. 5], 
that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God 
for me ; that I may be delivered [not from inward foes 
lurking in my heart] from them which do not believe 
in Judea ; and that my service which I have for Jeru- 
salem may be accepted of the saints, and that I may 
come unto you with joy by the will of God." He 
prays, as one on a perilous mission to persons hostile 
to him would pray, for deliverance from the hands 
that had only a few years before nailed his Master to 
the cross. We cannot infer from these words any 
imperfection in Paul's spiritual life. 

In 2 Cor. i. II he again hints his desire for the 
prayers of believers in Corinth, '' Ye also helping 
together by prayer for us that . . . thanks may be 
given by many on our behalf." Here the context 
shows that deliverance from persecutors is the burden 
of his desire, and when delivered, that all who had 
prayed for him might be blessed in offering thanks- 
givings to God. 

Eph. vi. 18, 19, "Praying always with all prayer 
. . . for me, that utterance may be given unto me, 
that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the 
mystery of the gospel." He wishes for persuasive 
utterance to enable him to fasten saving truth upon 
the hearts of wicked men. The burden of his desire 
is not for himself, but for others. He has what every 



38 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

preacher should have, a heart at leisure from itself 
through full salvation, and only anxious for the success 
of the word preached. 

CoL iv. 3, *' Withal praying for us, that God would 
open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mys- 
tery of Christ." Through all his epistles up to the 
day of his death, this cry of Paul's heart sounds out, 
not " who shall deliver me from this dead body of car- 
nality," but " utterance, effectual utterance, that I 
may save some of the multitudes who are thronging 
the downward road." 

2. Thess. in. i, ''Finally, brethren, pray for us, that 
the word of the Lord may have free course, and be 
glorified." In the next verse he prays for deliverance, 
not from the plague of an unsanctified heart, but "from 
unreasonable and wicked men " — fanatical Jews, who 
thought they would be doing acceptable service to the 
God of Abraham, if they should kill Paul, the supposed 
enemy of the religion of his own nation. 

In Philemon 22 he invites Philemon to pray for 
providential protection in his journey to him, " For I 
trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto 
you." Much the same style of request occurs in Heb. 
xiii. 1 8, 19, "Pray for us . . . that I may be restored 
unto you the sooner." So Pauline is this request and 
the prayer, " The God of peace . . . make you perfect," 
that I have no doubt of its authorship. 

Phil. i. 19, " My salvation through your prayer." It is 
declared by some that spiritual salvation is here spoken 
of, a deliverance from the love of sin, if not from the 
guilt of sin. But what say the great scholars and 
exegetes } " Deliverance from present custody," say 



FOR WHAT DID ST. PAUL ASK PRAYERS ? 39 

Chrysostom and Theodoret, ''sustenance in life and 
bodily health," says CEcumenius ; while Michaelis 
insists that it is '' victory over foes," and Grotius sug- 
gests "the salvation of others," and Alford, ''his own 
fruitfulness for Christ and glorification of him, whether 
by life or death, and so eventually his own salvation, in 
degree of blessedness, not in relation to the absolute 
fact." No one of these suggests entire sanctification 
from indwelling sin. If, as a school of expositors 
assert, Paul's spiritual life is mirrored in Rom. vii., end- 
ing with the despairing cry, " O wretched man," we 
should expect to find him frequently begging the 
churches to pray for his spiritual emancipation from 
this distressing bondage, called by Delitzsch " The un- 
abolished antinomy." But the Christian world is sad- 
dened by no such doleful wail from him who said, "I 
am crucified with Christ ; it is no longer I that live, 
but Christ liveth in me." 

We conclude this half-hour with Paul with the fol- 
lowing general remarks on all of Paul's requests for 
prayer : — 

1. They are for things external and not internal; 
for providential protection, not for spiritual perfection. 
There is not the first hint of an inward warfare between 
the flesh and the spirit. 

2. They are for greater impressiveness and success 
in preaching, and for the removal of obstacles to the 
advance of the gospel. 

3. There is no intimation of doubts respecting his 
present and full salvation ; no confession of daily sins, 
nor of the root of sin existing in him. 



40 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

4. He never entreats the churches to intercede for 
his forgiveness and spiritual cleansing. 

5. He evinces no uncertainty about his present and 
future salvation. 

6. He shows that he is a man of like passions with 
ourselves, in his fear that evil men may obstruct the 
message by wounding, imprisoning, or killing the mes- 
senger. Hence we infer : — 

1. That Paul enjoyed the grace of Christian perfec- 
tion, being delivered both from sinning and from sin — 
having been saved from the first by regeneration and 
from the second by entire sanctification. 

2. That he had a clear, satisfactory, and joyful knowl- 
edge of his sonship to God, through faith in Christ, by 
the abiding witness of the Holy Spirit. 

3. That the self-condemning and self-loathing type 
of piety is not the highest style. St. Paul says nothing 
depreciative of the self on which the image of Christ is 
clearly enstamped. He is a stranger to a spiritual cruci- 
fixion in which he is forever dying on the cross and 
never dead. 



ST. PAUL, THE MODEL CHRISTIAN. 4I 



VIII. 

ST. PAUL, THE MODEL CHRISTIAN. 

The confession is painfully common in many of the 
churches, " I make many crooked paths." But we look 
in vain for anything like this in the frequent allusions 
of St. Paul to his own personal experience. He never 
intimates that his Christian course was a zigzag of sin- 
ning and repenting. The seventh chapter of Romans 
may be a photograph of the unregenerate Saul, while 
a devout Pharisee, endeavoring to realize in his own 
life his high ethical ideals without the aid of divine 
grace, and perpetually failing because of the domina- 
tion of the flesh, or depraved inclination, not yet con- 
quered by the new birth. It was never a portrait of 
Paul, the saint, regenerated by the Holy Ghost. 

If you wish to see this latter portrait you will find 
it in Phil. in. 14, R. V., " I press on toward the goal 
unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
Jesus." There is no crooked path here. For a racer 
with his eyes fixed upon the prize in the umpire's 
extended hand, practically demonstrates the geomet- 
rical theorem that the shortest distance between two 
points is a straight line. He '' presses on," turning 
neither to the right nor to the left to gratify curiosity 
or appetite. The old crooked self which clamored for 



42 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

indulgence, which sowed not to the spirit, has been 
crucified (Rom. vi. 6; Gal. ii. 20, and vi. 14), and the 
new self bears the image of him who never deviated 
a hair's breadth from a straight line in all his earthly 
life. 

St. Paul's rectitude, or straightness of moral charac- 
ter, is involved in his repeated exhortation in the form 
of a command, to imitate his own example, never quali- 
fying it by any such weakening limitation as " so far as 
I follow Christ." Let us study the proof -texts. Im- 
mediately after the above-quoted text implying Paul's 
straightforwardness as a racer, in verse 14, — a perfect 
racer as in verse 15, — he says in verse 17, "Be ye 
imitators together of me." — R. V. He then intimates 
that there were at Philippi successful copyists of his 
own example, which was in turn a reproduction of that 
of Christ. "Mark them which so walk as ye have us 
[me] for an example." He then tearfully declares that 
many were making very crooked paths, alluding not to 
those outside of the church, but to "many" professors 
of faith in our adorable Saviour, whose sensual lives 
evinced that they were enemies of the cross of Christ, 
the symbol of the highest self-sacrifice. They did not 
imitate the purity and self-conquest of the great apostle, 
the founder of their church, amid tumult, imprisonment, 
and stripes (Acts xvi. 23). If in those days, when 
persecution is supposed greatly to have winnowed the 
church, Paul found many names on the communion roll 
whose sensuality was a god, rivalling the sinless Jesus, 
and wringing tears from the eyes of the pastor who 
had once rejoiced over their espousals to Christ, how 
abundant would be his weeping were he in pastoral 



ST. PAUL, THE MODEL CHRISTIAN. 43 

contact with the many pleasure-loving members of our 
modern churches ! 

In Phil. iv. 9 Paul says with mandatory authority, 
''The things which you have both learned and received 
and heard and seen in me, these things do." What 
they learned and received related to Christian doctrine, 
but what they heard and saw in Paul involved his per- 
sonal conduct and character. They heard his conver- 
sation, the index of the inner life; for out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. They 
saw his manner of life, and they are required to fashion 
theirs after the model of his own. St. Paul could not 
have given such a precept if he had been conscious of 
a blemished life, of trifling or impatient words, and of 
acts showing the serpent-trail of sin. It is a moral 
impossibility, except upon the hypothesis of studied 
hypocrisy. 

The same command is reiterated with the added in- 
tensity of entreaty in i Cor. iv. i6, ''I beseech you, 
therefore, be ye imitators of me," your spiritual father. 
The loving father, who is conscious of ''making crooked 
paths," beseeches his boy not to follow his example. 
If the father burns incense to the vile god, tobacco, 
he usually entreats his son not to bend the knee to 
that polluting idol. The inference is irresistible that 
St. Paul was conscious of both inward and outward 
holiness. 

I Cor. xi. I. The chapter division at the close of 
I Cor. X. is very unfortunate, since it separates the ex- 
hortation from the preceding argument. The R. V. 
puts that exhortation, " Be ye imitators of me, even as 
I also am of Christ," in the paragraph where it be- 



44 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

longs. This shows in what particulars Paul wishes the 
Corinthians to imitate him ; namely, (i) in not seeking 
his own profit of ease, or fame, or gain, but only the 
salvation of the many. This is the disposition which 
Christ manifested, as described by Paul in that sublime 
passage found in Phil. ii. 3-1 1, discussed by theolo- 
gians as involving the doctrine of the "kenosis," the 
Son of God emptying himself. (2) We do not strain 
the text if we also make it include the imitation of the 
great apostle's singleness of eye in doing all things to 
the glory of God, and of giving " offence to neither 
the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of 
God." This life of perfect self-abnegation for the 
salvation of his fellow-men and for the glory of God, 
is at once the characteristic and proof of perfected 
holiness. 

In 2 Cor. iv. 2 there is an unmistakable confession 
of this grace, not in set phrase, but in terms which 
necessarily imply it. "We have renounced the hidden 
things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor hand- 
ling the word of God deceitfully, commending our- 
selves [myself] to every man's conscience in the sight 
of God." Here is a twofold appeal in proof of Paul's 
rectitude of life, the human conscience, and the eye of 
the Omniscient, who sees through all disguises as in the 
splendors of noon. Another and more striking double 
appeal of the same kind is found in i Thess. ii. 10, 
"Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly 
and unblamably we behaved ourselves," etc. The three 
adverbs express the three aspects of his character as 
viewed by God, by men, and by his own conscience. 
The Son of man excepted, no man in the Holy Scrip- 



ST. PAUL, THE MODEL CHRISTIAN. 45 

tures professes moral and spiritual perfection in terms 
as strong as these. For both God and man are called 
to attest it. Hence, it must be an inward reality, and 
not a mere outward seeming. 



46 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



IX. 

ST. PAUL'S LOVE TO HIS ENEMIES PERFECT 
IN KIND. 

We shall use the phrases entire sanctification and 
evangelical or Christian perfection as synonymous, 
though strictly speaking, the former is an act of the 
Holy Spirit, and the latter, called by St. John perfect 
love, is a state following that act. — Dent. xxx. 6. 

We are told by the great Teacher in Matt. v. 43-48, 
that love to one's enemies is the essence and evidence 
of Christian perfection. Man's love becomes, not in 
degree, but in kind, like God's love, when it pours it- 
self out in benefactions upon the thankless and thankful 
alike, as he sends sunshine and rain on the evil and the 
good. Did Paul love his enemies in this Godlike style } 
His bitterest foes were his Hebrew brethren. Christ's 
prediction, "A man's foes shall be they of his own 
household," was fulfilled in the case of Paul. The 
Jews thirsted for his blood. They bound themselves 
with an oath of starvation that they would kill the great 
Hebrew heretic. They mobbed him in Jerusalem, and 
stoned him in Gentile cities. They hounded his foot- 
steps wherever he journeyed. Hence he ran the risk 
of ''dying daily," of being "killed all the day long." 
He was ''in deaths oft." It was not the Romans, but 



ST. PAUL S LOVE TO HIS ENEMIES. 4/ 

'* the Jews," who five times waled his bare back with 
" forty stripes save one." — 2 Cor. xi. 24. 

Could Paul love men so full of malice and cruelty ? I 
do not wonder that he prefaces and fortifies his almost 
incredible answer with four solemn asseverations, be- 
speaking credence to a statement so contrary to human 
nature : " I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my con- 
science also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 
that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my 
heart." Then he astounds the world with the declara- 
tion of love to his malignant and venomous fellow- 
countrymen, so strong as to prompt him to surrender 
up his life upon the accursed tree, making an atone- 
ment for them, in addition to that already made by the 
Son of God, if it were possible for a creature to make 
an acceptable propitiation for sin. '* For I could wish 
myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kins- 
men according to the flesh." — Rom. ix. 1-3. 

Here angels and men saw divine love walking the 
earth a second time, incarnated in human form, and 
uttering from the same cross the same prayer for mur- 
derous enemies : " Father, forgive them ; for they 
know not what they do." Does Christ prove '* his 
love toward us, in that, while we were sinners, he 
died for us " } St. Paul asserts his willingness to do 
the same for his foes. If this is not love of the purest 
kind possible in men, in angels, and even in God him- 
self, then we know not what perfect love is. Here 
Paul professes perfect love, excluding all that is antag- 
onistic to it, and hence cleansing from all inward sin. 
Indirectly he declares that the Holy Spirit has sanc- 
tified him wholly. The same divinely implanted, un- 



48 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

selfish love, which is attended by sacrifice, and seeks 
no earthly recompense, is found in his declaration — 
(2 Cor. xii. 1 5), '' I will very gladly spend, and be spent 
for you ; though the more abundantly I love you, the 
less I be loved." No taint of selfishness can be justly 
predicated of such love. It is as pure as that which 
glows in the heart of a seraph. 

Let us look at Paul amid the perplexities of his ad- 
ministration of church discipline. He had ordered the 
trial and expulsion of an immoral member of the Corin- 
thian church. His anxiety to hear what effect this 
excision had upon the rest of the church, and the love 
of the apostle's heart, which prompted this disciplinary 
act, are graphically portrayed in 2 Cor. it. 4, " For out 
of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto 
you with many tears ; not that ye should be made sorry, 
but that ye might know the love which I have more 
abundantly unto you." Here we are assured that "more 
abundant" love grasped the pruning-knife, and cut off 
the diseased branch. Query. Is the absence of strict 
discipline in the modern Christian church not a proof 
of deficient love on the part of the administrative offi- 
cers, since abundant love is manifested by Paul in pur- 
ging the church of an unworthy member.? The bound- 
less breadth of Paul's love shows that like that of God 
it is perfect in quality. Hear his exhortation, which 
must reflect his own practice, unless he was a hypocrite, 
not a guide, but a guide-post pointing out to others the 
way, but not walking in it himself (i Tim. ii. i) : '' I ex- 
hort therefore, that supplications, prayers, interces- 
sions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for 
this is good and acceptable in the sight of God." 



ST. PAUL S LOVE TO HIS ENEMIES. 49 

The same universal love crops out in this statement, 
*' I am made all things to all men, that I might by all 
means save some." — i Cor. ix. 22. '' I please all men 
in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the 
profit of many, that they may be saved." — i Cor. x. 33. 
Such self-abnegation in the interest of all unsaved men 
indicates that Paul had reached the final step " in the 
long road to the end of self." His love for the church 
is like that of Christ, who loved the church, and as an 
indisputable proof "gave himself up for it." Eph. v. 25. 
— R. V. Paul was always on the stretch to be filling up 
*' that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my 
flesh for his body's sake, which is the church." — Col. i. 
24. For her sanctification and salvation, he shrank not 
from crucifixion with his Lord, " being made conform- 
able to his death." Here is an entirety of self-surren- 
der to Christ, a wholeness of devotion, a perfectness of 
love, utterly inconsistent with the least remaining car- 
nality, which, in the regenerate, always causes a divided 
heart. 

We cannot leave this subject without bringing forth 
a few of the manifold proofs of the intense ardor of 
Paul's love. His heart was a furnace heated sevenfold, 
not to burn up his enemies, but to consume their sins. 
Let those who conceive of Paul as a man stern and 
austere, study the following texts : — 

I Thess. ii. 7, 8, 11. "You know how we exhorted 
and comforted and charged every one of you, as a 
father doth his children : we were gentle among you, 
even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So being 
affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have 
imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also 



50 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

our [my] own souls, because ye were dear unto us [me]." 
Here is a scene for a historical painting : Paul, the 
great theological polemic, raised up to run a dividing 
line between Judaism and Christianity, in such away as 
to include in the latter every permanent ethical princi- 
ple, and to exclude everything national and transitory 
in the former, with slippered feet moving noiselessly 
about in the nursery among the cradles, tenderly min- 
istering to the puniest infant in whom is the breath of 
spiritual life. This is a photograph of perfect love. 

PJiil, i. 8, " God is my record, how greatly I long 
after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ." This text 
implies an identity with Christ, so intimate that his 
heart beats in the apostle's bosom with an unspeakable 
intensity of yearning love. Surely Paul fulfilled the 
second table of the law ; he loved his neighbor as him- 
self. This was possible only when he was obeying the 
first great commandment, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart." We have educed proofs 
that are absolutely unanswerable, that the Apostle to 
the Gentiles was fulfilling both tables of the law. 

If Paul is the only one who has measured up to 
Christ's command, " Be ye therefore perfect, even as 
your Father in heaven is perfect," it is sufficient to 
prove that the command is not an unattainable ideal, 
but a practicable requirement which all believers in 
Christ have the gracious ability to perform, if they 
have received their heritage in Christ, the fulness of 
the Holy Spirit. 

Paul's love was universal, embracing every character 
and condition of mankind. We have noted his intense 
affection for his enemies, his abundant love toward the 



ST. PAULS LOVE TO HIS ENEMIES. 5 1 

disorderly Corinthian church and its offending member, 
as well as his tenderness toward spiritual babehood. 

It remains for us to speak of two other classes, who 
were the objects of his melting love: First, the Ga- 
latian converts on the spiritual retrograde. Hear his 
tender expostulation, '' My little children, of whom I 
travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. 
Where is the blessedness ye spake of ? Am I to become 
your enemy, because I tell you the truth ? " — Gal. iv. 1 5- 
19; and secondly, his love for Christian strangers whom 
he knew only by report. For such he is ready to lay 
down his life. ''As much as in me lies, I am ready to 
preach the gospel to you that are at Rome" — impla- 
cable, relentless, cruel Rome, fattening on the spoils of 
nations, and thirsting for the blood of the Apostle to 
the Gentiles. Why did Paul thrust himself into this 
cage of ravenous beasts.'* Rom. i. 9-12, *' God is my 
witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of 
his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you 
in my prayers . . . For I long to see you, that I may 
impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may 
be established." 

We have heard of preachers who daily bear on their 
hearts in prayer the churches to which they have pro- 
claimed the unsearchable riches of Christ, but how 
many can be found in the whole course of history, who, 
''without ceasing," pray for the churches in which they 
may be stationed in the future.-* 



52 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



X. 

ST. PAUL CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST. 

Many people are perplexed to understand the exhor- 
tation to give up self to Christ and to have no will 
of their own. We are so created that we must regard 
our own welfare. Self-love is implanted in our natures. 
If it would be destroyed, there would be nothing to 
which God or man could appeal. Neither threatening 
nor promise would move such a soul. Moreover, self- 
love has the approval of Christ in his epitome of the 
moral law. He makes it the measure of our love to 
our neighbor — "Love thy neighbor as thyself." But 
selfishness differs from self-love in this, that self is 
exalted into the supreme law of action. The well- 
being of others, and the will of God, are not regarded. 
This is the self that is to be crucified. Says St. Paul, 
"I am crucified with Christ, but it is no longer /that 
live, but Christ liveth in me " — 

Gal. ii. 20 — as punctuated by Alford. The former 
ego of selfishness has met with a violent death, having 
been nailed to the cross, and Christ has taken the 
supreme place in the soul. The very fact that this 
death was violent implies that it was instantaneous, a 
very sharply defined transition in St. Paul's conscious- 
ness. There is some one last rallying point of selfish- 



ST. PAUL CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST. 53 

ness, a last ditch in which the evil ego intrenches itself. 
It may be some very trifling thing that is to be ex- 
empted from the dominion of Christ, some preference, 
some indulgence, some humiliating duty, some associa- 
tion to be broken, some adornment to be discarded. 
" Reign, Jesus, over all but this," is the real language 
of that unyielding heart. This trifle, held fast, has 
been the bar which has kept thousands out of that 
harmony with the divine will which precedes the ful- 
ness of the Spirit. 

But when this last intrenchment of self-will has 
been surrendered to Christ, he is not long in taking 
possession. The fulness, as well as the immediate- 
ness, depends on the faith of the soul in the divine 
promise. For there is a difference between the sub- 
jugation of the rebel and his reconstruction in loyal 
citizenship, between the death of sin and the fulness 
of the Christ-life. But the great distinctive and god- 
like feature of man is his free will. The memorable 
event, the pivotal point on which destiny, heaven, or 
hell hinges, is the hour of intense spiritual illumina- 
tion, conviction of sin, when sin is deliberately chosen 
— "evil, be thou my good" — or voluntarily rejected. 
Submission to Christ is an act of faith. It could not 
be possible without confidence in his veracity and good- 
ness. Hence, justification and emergence into ''the 
higher life " frequently take place when the only pre- 
ceding act which impressed itself on the memory was 
not an act of faith, but of surrender, which is grounded 
on trust as its indispensable condition. 

Some writers on advanced Christian experience mag- 
nify the will, and say to inquirers, Yield, bow, submit, 



54 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

to the law of Christ. While the evangelist of the Wes- 
leyan type says, Believe, believe Christ's every word. 
Both are right. Perfect trust cannot exist without 
perfect consecration. Nor can we make over all our 
interests into Christ's hands without the utmost con- 
fidence in his word. Hence, crucifixion with Christ 
implies perfect faith in him, not only when he is riding 
in triumph into Jerusalem amid the huzzas of enthusi- 
astic men and the hosannas of willing children, but 
when the fickle multitude are crying, ''Crucify him." 
From the beginning Jesus intimated that discipleship 
must be grounded on an acceptance of himself, stripped 
of all the attractions of riches or honor. To know him 
after the flesh, from some selfish and worldly motive, 
is to fail to know him in that way which insures eter- 
nal life. To an enthusiastic scribe who had just seen 
the glorious display of power in the healing of Peter's 
wife's mother and the casting out of demons, and who 
was taking only a romantic, rose-colored view of dis- 
cipleship prompting the thoughtless promise, " I will 
follow thee whithersoever thou goest," Jesus replied, 
"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have 
nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his 
head." '' Let him who follows me know that he is -fol- 
lowing a pauper, fed at the tables of friends, and soon 
to be buried as a beggar at their expense." "If any 
man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up 
his cross daily, and follow me." Here, over the very 
gateway of the kingdom of Christ, stands chiselled the 
stony words " Crucifixion of self." Hence, it is no 
stern requirement of the so-called higher Christian life ; 
it is the condition of the lowest degree of spiritual life. 



ST. PAUL CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST. 55 

The higher the degree of life the higher the required 
consecration. 

Hence, love made perfect requires as its antecedent 
that perfect surrender which, in the strong language of 
St. Paul, is crucifixion with Christ. The difficulty with 
average Christians is, that they faint beneath the cross 
on the via dolorosa^ the way of grief, and never reach 
their Calvary. They do not by faith gird on strength 
for the hour when they must be stretched upon the 
cross. They shrink from the torturing spike, and from 
the spear aimed at the heart of their self-life. This 
betokens weakness of faith. But when the promise is 
grasped with the grip of a giant, no terrors, no agonies, 
can daunt the soul. In confidence that there will be 
after the crucifixion a glorious resurrection to spiritual 
life and blessedness, the believer yields his hand to the 
nail, and his head to the thorn crown. That flinty cen- 
tre of the personality, the will, which has up to this 
hour stood forth in resistance to the complete will of 
God, suddenly flows down, a molten stream under the 
furnace blast of divine love, melted into oneness with 
"the sweet will of God." After such a death there is 
always a resurrection unto life. An interval of hours 
or even of days may take place before the angels shall 
descend and roll away the stone from the sepulchre of 
the crucified soul, and the pulsations of a new and bliss- 
ful life be felt through every fibre and atom of the 
being. It is not the old life that rises, but a new life is 
breathed forth by the Holy Ghost. " I am crucified with 
Christ, it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth 
in me." {R. V.Am. Committee^ "Dead indeed unto 
sin," "but alive unto God through Jesus Christ." 



56 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

" He walks in glorious liberty, 
To sin entirely dead : 
The Truth, the Son, hath made him free. 
And he is free indeed. 

Throughout his soul Thy glories shine; 

His soul is all renewed, 
And deck'd in righteousness divine. 

And clothed and filled with God." 

He who enjoys this repose is brought so intimately 
into sympathy with Jesus Christ that he is all aflame 
with zeal, and aroused to the utmost activity to save 
lost men. As a venerable preacher, widely known, 
quaintly expressed it, " I enjoy the rest of faith that 
keeps me in perpetual motion^ 



ST. PAUL S PERFECT FAITH. 5/ 



XI. 

ST. PAUL'S PERFECT FAITH. 

We continue our proof that St. Paul enjoyed and 
professed entire sanctification. This grace is implied 
in that perfect faith which never lapses into doubt. 
Such a faith gives perfect victory over the world, which 
is a comprehensive term for all moral evil or sin. This 
faith is confessed in 

Phil. iv. 13, ** I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me." One of the highest tests of faith 
to a man of taste and culture like Paul, who seems 
to have been brought up in the lap of plenty, is that 
extreme and pinching poverty that knows the keen 
cravings of hunger. The devil was cunning enough 
to assail Jesus when he was hungry. Hear what Paul 
says in the preceding verse, " I know how to be abased, 
and I know also how to abound : in everything and in 
all things have I learned the secret both to be filled 
and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want." 
{R. V?) Then follows the sublime confession of the 
great apostle that in such distressing circumstances he 
has a faith in Christ which keeps him from sinful repin- 
ings and charging God foolishly. His is not the surly 
philosophic stoicism of Dr. Samuel Johnson in Grub 
Street, who, when in destitution, once closed a letter 



58 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

with ''yours iinprajisns " (without breakfast) ; but it was 
a cheerful, yea, even joyful, suffering of privations, be- 
cause of his intense love to him who had not where 
to lay his head, was fed at other men's tables, and 
buried in a borrowed tomb. This perfect faith gleams 
out in 

2 Tim. i. 12, "I know whom I have believed." Here 
faith is perfect because it has merged into knowledge. 
Faith is the only door through which a knowledge of 
God comes into the soul, the only path which leads to 
a clear apprehension of spiritual realities. Paul well 
understood, from his own experience, this relation of 
faith to knowledge, and to evangelical perfection. 

In stating the purpose of the Christian ministry to 
be " for the perfecting of the saints," he adds, " till we 
all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowl- 
edge [perfect knowledge — Alford] of the Son of 
God." Here are not two unities, but one, made up of 
faith swallowed up in the full blaze of knowledge. He 
then intimates that this is a necessary element of a 
perfect man who receives " the fulness of Christ," or 
of that plenitude of grace which he communicates. 
See Eph. iv. 11-14. 

Paul makes his present knowledge of Christ the basis 
of faith that he will keep him from sin in the future 
— " And I am persuaded that he is able to keep [or 
guard] that which I have committed unto him [my de- 
posit — 6^;r^/^] against — that day." If Paul's experi- 
ence in the past had been one of sinful stumblings and 
sad falls, he could not have had so strong a trust in 
Christ to uphold him in the future. 

In 2 Tim. iv, 18, there is another outflashing of this 



ST. PAUL S PERFECT FAITH. 59 

perfect faith, "And the Lord shall deliver me from 
every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly 
kingdom." " Every evil work " must include moral 
evil or sin. In answer to the question, What evil 
work? Dean Alford answers, "The falling into the 
power of the tempter ; the giving way, in his own 
weakness and the desertion of all, and betraying the 
gospel for which he was sent as a witness." If he had 
complete confidence in the power of grace to keep him 
in the future, he certainly had faith to be cleansed 
from all present sinfulness. 

The texts quoted in proof of Paul's perfect faith are 
only samples of many of the same kind. 

If we can educe from Paul's epistles proofs of his en- 
tire self-abnegation in the interest of Christ, we shall 
demonstrate his holiness of heart and life. Turn to 

Phil. Hi. 4-8. After enumerating the successive 
steps of vantage which he enjoyed as an ambitious 
Hebrew eager for ecclesiastical promotion, Paul says, 
" Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have 
I counted loss for Christ. Yea, verily, and I count all 
things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge 
of Christ Jesus my Lord." Such language is not a 
characteristic of the consciousness of inbred sin, in 
which there is always a coddling of self and a " provis- 
ion for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." The Ed- 
wardian theology made selfishness the root of all sin. 
On this theory, perfect self-abnegation is entire sancti- 
fication, at least on its human side. Where this entire 
abandonment of self unto God exists, He will not be 
backward in performing the divine part of this work. 

Rom. xiv. 7, 8. " For none of us liveth to himself. 



6o HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

and none dieth to himself. For whether we live, we 
live unto the Lord." 

This may by some people be considered as Paul's un- 
attainable ideal of a true Christian. But who can prove 
that this ideal was not realized in Paul's experience ? 
If there is nothing in his life and character contradic- 
tory to it, then it should be regarded as a reflection 
of his own spiritual visage sanctified by divine grace. 
That there is nothing of this kind we shall show, when 
we examine misinterpreted passages in Paul's epistles. 

Acts xxi, 13. "For I am ready not to be bound 
only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the 
Lord Jesus." 

This is a veritable man, having flesh and blood, not 
an imaginary ideal. The statement is intensely per- 
sonal and realistic, " I am ready to die." He does 
not say, " We are ready ; " he could not speak for 
another in such a positive manner. People conscious 
of a sin-ward bent are not perfectly ready to go to 
the judgment. Such a consciousness makes cowards 
of many Christians. All their days they are in bond- 
age to the fear of death. Not so Paul. " I am ready 
to be offered." Such language proves two facts, (i) a 
total and irreversible self-surrender to Christ as both 
Saviour and Lord, and (2) a conscious meetness for 
standing in the presence of the Holy God, surrounded 
by the holy angels and " the spirits of just men made 
perfect " (the spirits of perfected just men — Greek). 
The dominion of the fear of death is broken when love 
is first inspired in the penitent believer ; but fear itself 
is cast out when love is made perfect. This is why 
Paul was ready to die. 



ST. Paul's perfect faith. 6i 

** His love, surpassing far 
The love of all beneath, 
We find within our hearts, and dare 
The pointless darts of death." 

C. Wesley. 

St. Paul's spirit of self-sacrifice glows in every epis- 
tle, " Even as I please all men in all things, not seek- 
ing mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they 
may be saved " — 

I Cor. X. 33. It was not spasmodic, but habitual and 
characteristic. A niggard can once in a while pain- 
fully screw himself up to a generous contribution, to 
fall back again into his dominant penuriousness. But 
Paul, by the grace of God, was so thoroughly trans- 
formed that self-abnegation for the good of others had 
become second nature. He was even happy in self- 
sacrifice. Hear him, " and I will very gladly spend and 
be spent for you," — not to win your favor, — "though 
the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved." 
If perfectly disinterested love ever dwelt in one human 
bosom, besides that of Jesus Christ, it dwelt in the 
Apostle to the Gentiles. Covetousness is usually the 
last of the brood of vipers to be utterly destroyed in 
the heart of man. In Paul the serpent was more than 
scotched, he was killed outright. Proof — 

Acts XX. 33. "I have coveted no man's silver, or 
gold, or apparel." Wishing to have a free pulpit, per- 
fectly independent of the pews, he adds, " Yea, these 
hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them 
that were with me." This witness cannot be impeached. 
The proof is complete. Paul was wholly saved from 
covetousness, which salvation is not only a long way 
toward entire sanctification, it is entire sanctification. 



62 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

We will arrive at the same conclusion if we demon- 
strate that he was completely delivered from a love of 
human applause. 

Gal. i. 10, R. V.y " Am I seeking to please men } 
If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant 
of Christ." Man-pleasing was not his ultimate aim. 
He employed it as a means to his lofty Christian end, 
" Even as I also please all men in all things, not seek- 
ing my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they 
may be saved." This deliverance from a love of pop- 
ular applause is a very great salvation of which Paul 
speaks again in 

I Thess. ii. 4, " So we speak ; not as pleasing men, 
but God, which proveth our hearts." Paul's conquest 
of this evil propensity is seen in his style of preaching,' 
''not with enticing words, but in demonstration of the 
Spirit and of power." The Holy Ghost has very little 
use for fine writing. A florid style muffles his sword. 
It is impossible to tickle the fancy and pierce the heart 
at the same time. 



PAULINE TEXTS QUOTED AGAINST HOLINESS. 63 



XII. 



PERVERTED PAULINE TEXTS QUOTED AGAINST 
HOLINESS. 

St. Paul is the great logician of the New Testa- 
ment. He has long and intricate arguments expressed 
in an involved style, frequently branching off from the 
main line of thought and returning to it again further 
on, making his meaning obscure. Hence, even St. 
Peter, a brother apostle, and, as the Romanists aver, 
infallible in all theological and ethical questions, asserts 
that there '' are some things hard to be understood " in 
all our beloved brother Paul's epistles, which the ''igno- 
rant and unlearned," and he might have added, the de- 
signing, ''wrest, as they do the other Scriptures, unto 
their own destruction." Thanking Peter for his frank 
confession that he had to sweat over Paul's epistles, 
and for freely according to them a rank with the Old 
Testament Scriptures, we proceed to an examination 
of texts quoted against Christian perfection, or inward 
and outward holiness in this life. 

It is confidently asserted that St. Paul, in Phil in. 
12, disclaims the completeness of his spiritual life, and 
professes moral and spiritual imperfection. The R. V. 
represents him as saying, " Not that I have already 
obtained, or am already made perfect." 



64 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

The verb *' obtained" is here absolute; i.e., it has 
no object after it. What object must we supply.^ It 
is natural to supply it from something before uttered. 
The last preceding noun, ''resurrection from the dead," 
makes good sense as the object of obtained. But why 
should St. Paul assert a fact so manifest as this, that 
he had not risen from the dead ? Did any one assert 
that he had risen .? Yes. Some were spiritualizing the 
resurrection, perverting St. Paul's own words in Eph. 
ii. 6, and Col. iii. i, into an argument against the res- 
urrection of the body, while others were boldly declar- 
ing, "that the resurrection is past already." — (2 Tim. 
ii. 18.) 

Under this state of the facts, it was not the declara- 
tion of a mere truism, for Paul to aver that his resur- 
rection was future, not past. 

Let us now see what he means when he denies that 
he is "already made perfect." The R. V. "made per- 
fect," or perfected, is a more accurate translation of 
the original than the adjective "perfect " of the A. V. 
All the Greek lexicons and annotators insist that this 
verb " made perfect " here signifies " complete my 
course," just as the same verb is used by our Lord 
Jesus Christ in 

Licke xiii. 32, "The third day I shall be perfected." 
Does Jesus here disclaim moral wholeness and spir- 
itual completeness and perfection } Certainly not. 
Neither does St. Paul. Both speak of finishing their 
earthly course without the most distant hint of any 
spiritual imperfection in themselves. In fact, St. Paul 
in the fifteenth of this chapter classifies himself among 
the perfect in these words, " Let us therefore, as many 



PAULINE TEXTS QUOTED AGAINST HOLINESS. 6$ 

as be perfect, be thus minded." This can mean noth- 
ing less than a state of moral completeness and un- 
doubted loyalty to Christ, the love of God being so 
fully shed abroad in his heart as to exclude all that is 
antagonistic thereto. He means what St. John calls 
*'the love of God perfected, casting out all fear that 
hath torment." The twelfth verse is beautifully har- 
monized with the fifteenth. In the twelfth St. Paul 
disclaims perfection as a victor, since he has not fin- 
ished his race and touched the goal ; in the fifteenth he 
claims perfection as a racer, ''having laid aside every 
weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset." 

The prince of exegetes, Meyer, thinks that the prize 
which Paul had not grasped is expressed in 2 Tim. 
iv. 8, " a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous judge, shall give me at that day." As this 
refers to the time of the second coming of Christ, 
which is followed by the resurrection in which the 
saints are raised with bodies like unto his glorious 
body, it follows that our exposition is essentially the 
same. There is an agreement that the object not yet 
attained is in verse 12, the reward of the righteous 
judge, not moral perfection, and that the perfection 
professed inverse 15 refers to moral completeness. 

If any one of my readers still doubts the correctness 
of our exposition, I refer him to Dr. A. Clarke's Com- 
mentary for a full statement of the meaning of the 
Greek verb teleioo, in connection with the Olympic 
games, also to all the Greek lexicons, which, without any 
exception at all, define its secondary meaning '' to finish 
one's course." Paul could well say, when midway in 
his career, I have not yet received the prize ; I am not 



66 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

glorified, for I have not finished my course ; I have a 
conflict with the powers of darkness still to maintain, 
and the issue will prove whether I should be crowned. 
But a few years after this Paul sees that the end 
of the race is near. He is a prisoner in Rome, shut 
up in the Mamertine prison. Looking backwards 
he says, "I have finished my course." No more 
conflicts with Satan and his human allies await me ; 
my hand touches the prize in the hand of the judge, 
— the crown of righteousness. Up to this hour when 
the block and the headsman's axe are in full view, 
he knew that there was a possibility of failure, that 
he was in an enemy's land. Hence he was ''temperate 
in all things." 

This brings us to another misunderstood text — 
I Cor. ix. 2J, " I keep under my body, and bring it 
into subjection." This is often quoted to prove that 
depravity, the root of sin, was still in Paul, and that in 
these words he disclaims holiness of heart. But mark 
the terms used. He speaks of the body, and not of the 
flesh as depravity. He speaks only of appetites, in 
themselves innocent, and not of sinful passions and tem- 
pers. Adam and Eve in Eden had natural appetites 
needing moral control and receiving it up to the sad 
hour when through unbelief sin came into our world. 
Were our first parents in the least unholy because they 
had appetites requiring repression ? By no means. We 
argue that subjection of the body to the highest moral 
ends is a proof of holiness. Natural appetites in men 
are no more sinful than they are in horses. But they 
are the gateway through which sin enters when indul- 
gence is granted against the moral law, written or un- 



PAULINE TEXTS QUOTED AGAINST HOLINESS. 6/ 

written. Paul set a strong guard at that gate. In so 
doing he declares his hatred of sin, and not his prone- 
ness to sin. 

But did not Paul say ** I die daily " in 

I Cor. XV. 31.^ And does not this imply, if he was 
dying to sin daily, the continued existence of sin in 
him.'* Yes; if he thus died to sin. But there is no 
hint of sin in the text. The dying daily is a vivid 
statement of his peril of a martyr's death every day. 
See the context. If the dead rise not, and if Jesus 
Christ has not put the seal of truth upon his gospel 
by his resurrection, why do I stand in jeopardy every 
hour, daily running the risk of a violent death } In 2 
Cor. xi. 23, in a pithy and nervous style, Paul exclaims, 
*'in deaths oft;" and Rom. viii. 36, he applies to him- 
self and his fellow Christians, Ps. xliv. 22, "For thy 
sake we are killed all the day long." St. Paul died 
unto sin once for all. Many die unto sin so imperfectly 
that they are alive and ready to get up out of the 
coffin every morning in season to die again that day; 
then they quote, "• I die daily," a perfectly irrelevant 
proof -text, in justification of their playing fast and 
loose with sin. 

St. Paul's death to sin had no resurrection unto sin. 
So should ours be. i Tijn. i. 15 is our last perverted 
text in this chapter. Our readers may be surprised 
to learn that Paul the aged, in the fulness of his faith 
and love and professed holiness (i Thess. ii. 10), was, 
at the time he was writing this epistle, actually out- 
sinning all the sinners on the earth. This is the inter- 
pretation of some who search the Scriptures with the 
microscope to find proofs that sin must continue in the 



68 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

heart and crop out in the daily life of the best Chris- 
tian so long as he is in the body. They emphasize the 
present tense *' of whom I am chief." Let us read the 
context and see whether Paul is describing his past or 
his present character, *' Who zvas before a blasphemer, 
and a persecutor, and injurious." Now, it is a rhetorical 
usage for a writer describing past events to change to 
the present in order to render his narrative more life- 
like and impressive. This is called the historical present 
tense, which people of common-sense are in no danger 
of confounding with a real present, especially when the 
historian begins, as Paul does, by advertising the reader 
that he is narrating past events. The spirit of inspira- 
tion assumes that his readers will exercise the same 
good sense in reading the Bible as they do in reading 
other books. 

St. Paul had been the chief, or a chief, of sinners. 
He was now the chief of saved sinners. 

Gal. V. 17, ''So that ye cannot do the things that ye 
would." Alas, how many unsanctified souls have made 
this astounding mistranslation the pillow upon which 
they have slept the sleep of death ! There is no " can- 
not" in the original, nor in the R. V., w^hich is word for 
word the version of John Wesley a century and a quarter 
before : " The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the 
Spirit against the flesh, in order that ye may not do 
the things that ye would." 

The doctrine taught by Paul is that in the regenerate, 
but not in the entirely sanctified, there is a struggle 
going on, the purpose of which is this : When ye would 
do the works of the flesh the Spirit strives to prevent 
you, and when ye would follow the leading of the Spirit, 



PAULINE TEXTS QUOTED AGAINST HOLINESS. 69 

the flesh opposes. This warfare ceases when '' the flesh 
is crucified" (verse 24) and "the body of sin is de- 
stroyed." — (Rom. vi. 6.) Of this mistranslation Wesley 
says, " It makes Paul's whole argument nothing worth ; 
yea, asserts just the reverse of what he is proving." 
The author was once giving a Bible Reading on the sub- 
ject of practical holiness, when an official of his church 
arose and read this mistranslation, alleging the impossi- 
bility of living up to his moral ideal. With such a con- 
ception of God as a hard master he soon after became 
so demoralized as to wreck a nationalbank and flee to 
Canada, where he died. Apologies for sin, and extenu- 
ations of sin as unavoidable, are fraught with the ut- 
most moral peril. 



70 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XIII. 

STUMBLING-BLOCKS REMOVED. 

Setting an Electric Light in the Seventh Chapter of 
THE Epistle to the Romans. 

The seventh chapter of Paul's Epistle to the 
Romans is still quoted by some persons as a proof 
that the hereditary propensity to sin, called by theo- 
logians original sin, must continue in the heart of the 
believer so long as he lives. 

I. But, if it prove that sin, as a principle, must 
exist, it also demonstrates far more clearly that sin- 
ning, by repeated, wilful violations of the known law 
of God, is the best moral state into which the abound- 
ing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ can bring the be- 
liever under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, the 
Sanctifier. For habitual sins, of voluntary omission 
and commission, make up his every-day life. He does 
not do what he knows to be morally obligatory, and 
hateful sins he is constantly committing. Such a life 
must be under continual condemnation, inconsistent 
with justification. Hence, this chapter disproves justi- 
fication more cogently than it does entire sanctifica- 
tion. This is our first objection to that interpretation 
of this chapter which makes it the portrait of a regen- 
erate soul. 



STUMBLING-BLOCKS REMOVED. 7I 

2. Our next objection to such an exegesis is that it 
makes the gospel as great a failure as the law in its 
reconstruction of human character. But this idea is 
flatly contradictory to the whole tenor of the New 
Testament. " For what the law could not do, in that 
it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own 
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering 
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." — (Rom. viii. 3, 
R. V.) But what has this to do with regeneration 
and sanctification ? The next verse assures us that the 
purpose of the mission of the Son is, '' That the right- 
eousness of the law might be fulfilled in tis [not in 
Christ, as the imputationists vainly teach], who walk 
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 

The contrast between the inefficiency of the law and 
the efficiency of the gospel is seen again in Heb. vii. 
19, 25, ''The law made nothing perfect;" "Where- 
fore he is able also to save them unto the uttermost 
[completely, Delitzsch, Westcott, and others] that 
come unto God by him." Still more explicitly this 
contrast appears in Heb. ix. 9, 14, "The sacrifices 
could not make him that did the service perfect, as 
pertaining to the conscience [of sins, Heb. x. 2] . . . 
How much more shall the blood of Christ . . . purge 
your conscience from dead [sinful] works to serve the 
living God." We must brand that exposition as false 
which degrades " the glorious ministration of the 
Spirit " to the low level of the " ministration of con- 
demnation and death." — (2 Cor. iii. 7-18.) 

3. We cannot accept that exegesis which violates the 
first rule of interpretation, — the law of non-contradic- 
tion. No passage is to be explained in such a way as 



72 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

to make the writer contradict himself in the same 
document. 

(i). In Rom. vi., "We are dead unto sin;" "our old 
man is crucified, that the body of death might be de- 
stroyed." Again, "Being made free from sin, ye be- 
come servants of righteousness;" "ye have your fruit 
unto holiness." In chapter viii. we read, " For the law 
of the Spirit of life hath made me free from the law of 
sin and death." It must be, therefore, that St. Paul, 
in chapter vii., is not portraying a regenerate man, but 
a convicted Jew, who, under the glare of the law, sees 
himself a sinner, and resolves to achieve perfect recti- 
tude in his own strength, without divine grace, and 
makes a series of failures so sad as to extort the wail 
that has been repeated through all the non-Christian 
ages, " O wretched man that I am ! " 

(2). Again, St. Paul must not in one text be so un- 
derstood as to contradict the disclosures of his inner 
life in all other texts where he has drawn aside the 
veil. He nowhere else intimates that sin dwells in 
him. He requests prayers for himself in every epistle, 
for success in his ministry of the gospel, but never for 
the conquest of inward foes, never for the complete- 
ness of his spiritual life. He frequently testifies to 
deadness to sin (^R. V., Am. Committee, Gal. ii. 20), 
" I have been crucified with Christ ; and it is no longer 
I that live." Gal. vi. 14, "But far be it from me to 
glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
through which the world has been crucified unto me, 
and I unto the world." i Thess. ii. 10, " Ye are 
witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and 
unblamably we behaved ourselves among you that 
believe," 



STUMBLING-BLOCKS REMOVED. 73 

How could a man living in the seventh chapter of 
Romans have the face to exhort the Corinthians thus 
(i Cor. xi. i), " Be ye imitators of me, even as I also 
am of Christ." 

4. Our difficulties increase. Character is never 
predicated from a tendency which is under control, 
but rather from that inner principle which habitually 
dominates the conduct. If St. Paul is describing him- 
self, or personating some other regenerate person, he 
cannot be classified as spiritual, since he confesses, " I 
am carnal, sold under sin." Are we to understand that 
carnality is the dominant principle in the regenerate } 
The phrase, " sold under sin," is the strongest expres- 
sion which the Holy Spirit uses in the Scriptures for 
the full depravity of an unsaved man. It implies will- 
ing slavery in the drudgery of sin. He had no power 
to redeem himself. 

We can conceive of true Christians with controlled 
depraved tendencies (i Cor. iii. 1-3) ; but we have no 
ability to conceive how one under the perfect mastery 
of the flesh can be other than a " natural man, not 
having the Spirit. — . (Jude 19, R. V. margin?) 

In Ro7n. viz. 7-24 there is no term which implies the 
new birth, or spirituality. In the whole contest the 
Spirit does not appear on the field as one of the com- 
batants. "The inward man" is not the new man, but 
the mind, including the assthetical sensibilities which 
admire the beauty of holiness while repudiating its 
obligation. The two parties to the contest are the 
moral reason antagonizing the depraved appetites and 
passions, the upper story of the house at war with the 
basement on the plane of nature. This is entirely dif- 



74 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

ferent from the strife of the Spirit against the flesh, in 
the case of the regenerate Galatians (chapter v. 17, 
R. F.), who had not advanced to the extinction of de- 
pravity by the Holy Spirit in entire sanctification, but 
were seeking perfection in the flesh, i.e., outward Jew- 
ish ordinances. 

5. The best scholarship discredits this chapter as the 
photograph of a regenerated man. The Greek Fathers, 
during the first three hundred years of church history, 
unanimously interpreted this scripture as describing 
a thoughtful moralist endeavoring without the grace of 
God to realize his highest ideal of moral purity. Au- 
gustine at first followed this interpretation, till in his 
collision with Pelagius he found verses 14 and 22 
quoted by his opponent to prove that the natural man 
can appreciate the beauty of holiness. To cut him off 
from these proof-texts he deviated from the traditional 
exegesis, and championed the new theory that this 
chapter is a delineation of the regenerate. Calvinian 
annotators have quite generally followed him, with 
notable modern exceptions, such as Moses Stuart and 
Calvin E. Stowe. The trend of modern scholars, 
whether Calvinian or Arminian, is now toward the 
view of the Greek Fathers. Among these are Meyer, 
Julius Miiller, Neander, Tholuck, Ewald, Ernesti, Lep- 
sius, Macknight, Doddridge, A. Clarke, Turner, Whe- 
don. Beet, and Stevens of Yale. 

To our interpretation it is objected that there are 
two utterances which strongly imply a state of grace. 
The first is the 12th verse, ''Wherefore the law is holy, 
and the commandment holy, and just, and good." The 
second is the 22d verse, '' For I delight in the law of 



STUMBLING-BLOCKS REMOVED. 75 

God after the inward man." It is asserted that an iin- 
regenerate man cannot form high moral ideals and con- 
template them with delight. The assertion betrays an 
ignorance of human nature under the spell of depravity. 
It still has power to create splendid ideals, and revel in 
contemplating them. Some even account their admira- 
tion of virtue as a very good substitute for its presence. 
Isa. Iviii. 1-4. Drunkards admire temperance, yet yield 
to the clamor of the alcoholic appetite ; rakes admire 
purity and seek it in marriage, while they still visit 
'' her whose house is the way to hell." The poet 
Thomas Moore thus describes Thomas Jefferson, the 
author of the Declaration of Independence, 

" [He] dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace." 

Fallen humanity is a paradox. You will find it in all 
the pagan literatures, especially the Greek and Latin 
poets. We quote Ovid as a specimen : — 

" My reason this, ray passion that persuades; 
I see the right^ and I approve it too; 
Condemn the wi^ong, and yet the wrong pursue.^' 

Says Canon Mozley, in allusion to this very chapter, 
" Man possesses a moral nature, and, if he has intellect 
enough, he can put his moral ideas into words, just as 
he can put metaphysical ideas ; nor is his doing so a7iy 
test of his moj^al condition. Take any careless person of 
corrupt habits out of the thick of his ordinary life, and 
ask him to state in words what is his moral creed. 
Has he any doubt about it .? None. He immediately 
puts down a list of the most sublime moral truths and 
principles. But so far as relates to himself, as soon as 



yG HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

these truths are formally and properly enunciated, their 
whole design and purpose is fulfilled." They are not 
a law to him. 

Some who wish to adopt our interpretation are per- 
plexed by the last verse of the chapter. If the two 
sentences of the verse were interchanged they would 
be relieved. But, in the present order, the doctrine 
seems to be taught that after victory, "through Jesus 
Christ our Lord," there is a lapse into the old struggle. 
Not so. The last sentence of the chapter is an epit- 
ome of the whole struggle between the *'mind," or 
moral reason, and the flesh, or sinful proclivity. The 
emphatic words are, ^^ I myself ,'' alone, on the plane of 
nature, without the aid of Christ, can do no better than 
to render a dual service, with the mind serving the law 
of God, by my admiration of its excellence, but with 
the flesh, the law of sin, by such a surrender as carries 
my guilty personality with it. After this recapitulation 
the paean of permanent victory resounds through the 
entire eighth chapter. 

The exposition will be greatly illuminated by observ- 
ing that vii. 5 contains the thesis of vii. 7-25, and vii. 
6 the thesis of viii. 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH. 77 



XIV. 

ST. PAULAS CLASSIFICATION OF THE CORINTHIAN 
CHURCH IN TWO CLASSES. 

In I Cor. ii. 14 St. Paul describes the natural man 
as utterly devoid of spiritual perception. Spiritual 
realities " are foolishness unto him;" and " he cannot 
know them, because they are spiritually judged or ex- 
amined" (i?. V?). Christ foretold this state of things 
when he declared that ''the world," the aggregate of 
natural men, ''cannot receive the Spirit of truth, be- 
cause they see him not." They have in exercise only 
sense-perception and reason, neither of which appre- 
hends God and spiritual things. Spiritual intuition is 
an attribute of spiritual life ; and spiritual life is absent, 
because unbelief bars out the Holy Spirit, the Lord 
and Giver of life. Hence, St. Jude describes " natural 
or sensual [animal, R. V., margin] men as having not 
the Spirit." Just the opposite is the characteristic of 
spiritual men, "Now we have received not the Spirit 
of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we 
might know the things that are freely given to us of 
God." While the natural man is, by the perverse atti- 
tude of his will, an agnostic, the spiritual man is an 
epignostic, having a clear perception of divine realities, 
which he is enabled to speak of, not in the terms of 



yS HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

grovelling human philosophy, but in the words which 
the Spirit teacheth (i Cor. ii. 13, R. V., margin)^ "in- 
terpreting spiritual things to spiritual men." 

Having clearly defined these two classes, the natural 
and the spiritual, the Apostle to the Gentiles encoun- 
ters a difficulty in attempting to classify the Corinthian 
church. It will not do to call them natural, because 
they have a low degree of spiritual life, they are babes 
in Christ. They are on the resurrection side of the 
unbridged chasm between death and life. The term 
''babes" implies life, and the words ''in Christ" imply 
regeneration and vital union with Christ. Moreover, 
they are addressed as " sanctified in Jesus Christ." 

These words import that the principle of holiness 
had been lodged in their hearts, indicating their calling 
" to be saints," when that principle should achieve the 
exclusion of every antagonistic principle, i.e., when they 
should be sanctified wholly, body, soul, and spirit. St. 
Paul sees such a transformation already begun in the 
Corinthian disciples that he thanks God always for the 
grace of God which was given them, and for their en- 
richment in all utterance and all knowledge, so that 
they came behind in no gift. After this description, 
there is no ground for impeaching their discipleship to 
Christ. Why, then, does the apostle hesitate to rank 
them as spiritual .? Because their spirituality is soiled 
and tainted with carnality. Inbred sin is still active 
though not regnant. In the language of Joseph Cook, 
" they possess a predominant, rather than a perfect sim- 
ilarity to God in moral character, loving what he loves 
and hating what he hates." While the trend of their 
being is upward, there are strong downward proclivi- 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH. 79 

ties which distract and endanger. Jealousy, strife, and 
schism are not fruits of the Spirit, but works of the 
flesh not yet crucified, although dethroned ; the strong 
man being not yet cast out, though bound in chains. 

In this perplexity St. Paul, unable to call the Corinth- 
ians either spiritual or natural, without flattery and void 
of fear, bluntly declares, i Cor. Hi. 3, " Ye are yet car- 
nal," — mere 7ne7i of flesh. He charges their unchris- 
tian acts to an unholy state. He traces their perverse 
doing to a lingering perversity in their being, which 
must be rectified before they can be truthfully denomi- 
nated perfectly spiritual. 

We must not suppose for a moment that these babes 
in Christ were wilfully transgressing the known law of 
God, for such sin would forfeit their adoption. Their 
fault was in not leaving the elementary principles and 
pressing on unto perfection, and in remaining chronic 
babes so long that they had taken on the unlovely char- 
acteristics of dwarfs. Babes as having least of earthly 
mould and freshest from the hand of God awaken our 
admiration ; but protracted infancy awakens pity rather 
than delight. They are weak and sickly, unable to do 
a man's day's work in the Lord's vineyard. They are 
dyspeptic, turning away from those strong truths and 
high experiences which make gigantic believers who 
fight manfully the good fight of faith ; while the 
dwarfs, equal in age to these stalwarts, linger in the 
nursery, and cry for the milk-bottle out of cradles 
which they have no ambition to outgrow. It is not 
strange that the spiritual forces become weak, and the 
old nature, which should have been moribund, becomes 
so fully developed as to threaten to unhinge the be- 



80 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

liever's right relation to God. Practically ciphers in 
the church, they are doctrinally weathercocks whirled 
about by every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men. 
They are "dull of hearing," and more dull of under- 
standing the higher possibilities of grace attainable 
through the Holy Spirit appropriated by faith. What 
bungling teachers are these ! Wherever they are found 
in the pulpit, they are " unskilful in the word of right- 
eousness." Yet this very word, of whose deep signif- 
icance they are experimentally ignorant, is the sword 
of the Spirit, which they know not how to wield effect- 
ively in the battle into which they have rushed unbid- 
den and unprepared. 

In a church of which I was pastor, the desire was 
publicly expressed for a revival in which many sinners 
should be converted. A wise woman, who sorrowed 
over the lack of spiritual development in the members 
of that church, arose and said, "What should we do 
with the converts ? We have no place for them ; the 
cradles are all full." 

The Corinthian church is not the only church in 
which the nursery furniture is in greater demand than 
are the weapons of war — not the only church to many 
of whom it might be said, " Are ye not carnal ? " But 
if many who are truly regenerate have depravity still 
dwelling — not reigning — in them, does not this fact 
demonstrate the truth of " the residue theory " ? It is 
certain that there was a residue of sinful proclivity mar- 
ring the character, disturbing the peace, and threaten- 
ing the unity of one apostolic church. 

The same marked distinction between two kinds of 
disciples of Christ occurs in 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH. 8 1 

Phil. it. 20, which is thus translated by Alford : 
" For I have none else like-minded with myself who 
will really care for your affairs ; for all [my present 
companions] seek their own matters, not those of 
Jesus Christ." The only two wholly consecrated men 
in whom self had been crucified among the preachers 
in Rome, when Paul penned the epistle to Philippi, 
were himself and Timothy. Says Alford, " No weaken- 
ing of the assertion must be thought of, as that of the 
' all,' meaning many or most or care more about their 
own matters," as many annotators have tried to do. 
" The word ' all,' and the assertion that they seek their 
own, not the things of Jesus Christ, are absolute." — 
Alford. Meyer and Ellicott indorse this view strongly. 
Says Wesley, *' For all " but Timothy " seek their own 
— ease, safety, pleasure, or profit. Amazing ! In that 
golden age of the church could St. Paul thoroughly 
approve of one only among the laborers that were 
with him } And how many do we think can now ap- 
prove themselves unto God .? " 

This sorting of Christians into two kinds, the self- 
crucified and those in whom self lives, the wholly and 
the partially sanctified, is a delicate business for which 
only an inspired apostle is competent. While we falli- 
ble mortals may wisely shrink from drawing the line, 
we should remember that this line is clearly discerned 
by the eye of Omniscience. O Lord, to which class do 
I belong > In which is the greatest safety, happiness, 
and usefulness } There can be but one answer. 



82 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XV. 

PRAYERS FOR THE SANCTIFI CATION OF BELIEVERS. 

" Blest are the pure in heart ; wouldst thou be blest ? 
He'll cleanse thy spotted soul ; wouldst thou find rest ? 

Around thy toils and cares he'll breathe a calm, 

And to thy wounded spirit lay a balm ; 
From fear draw love ! and teach thee where to seek 
Lost strength and grandeur, with the bowed and meek." 

The Epistle to the Philippians has been called the 
joyful epistle. It is full of commands to rejoice. This 
is because it is the outgushing of love, the fountain of 
joy in the heart of the writer. No epistle is so warm 
in its expressions of affection. In some passages St. 
Paul seems to exhaust the words of endearment in the 
Greek language, in his eagerness to pour out the im- 
petuous river of his love. Read in proof of this Chapter 
iv. I, *' Wherefore, my brethren, beloved and longed 
for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my 
beloved." Love of a worthy object is the secret of 
bliss. The apostle had found that secret. The Holy 
Spirit had penetrated his heart to its very depths, and 
had abundantly shed abroad love to God and men, es- 
pecially to believers in Jesus Christ. There was a very 
strong tie which bound him to the brethren in Philippi : 
he had suffered for them in the stocks, under the lash, 
and in the nether prison. Sacrifice and suffering for 



PRAYERS FOR THE SANCTIFICATION OF BELIEVERS. 83 

Others invest them with a peculiar preciousness. In a 
course of lectures at Yale University on pastoral duties, 
the speaker insisted that love is the only adequate mo- 
tive to a successful ministry, — love of the souls of the 
people. He was asked, ''How can I get this love?" 
The answer was defective, because it did not recognize 
the Holy Ghost as the Inspirer of love. The speaker, 
H. W. Beecher, replied, '' Go to work in earnest for the 
salvation of souls, and make sacrifices for them, and 
you will begin to love them." This is true in the case 
of a pastor already filled with the Spirit of God. In 
the absence of the spirit-baptism, self-sacrifice for 
others, especially the vile and thankless, is a difficult if 
not impossible achievement. It requires great love to 
prompt to self-abnegation and voluntary suffering ; and 
this love is of God. But where such love has been en- 
kindled by the breath of God, it becomes amazingly 
intensified by our self-denial and patient toil for those 
who are dead in sin. When they are raised to newness 
of life by the resurrection power of the Spirit, and are 
wearino- the imao:e of Christ, a bond of love is knit be- 
tween the pastor and the converts stronger than can 
be found elsewhere on earth. Hence St. Paul's love 
for the churches which he had planted amid tribula- 
tions, and also his overflowing joy. In the beautiful 
procession of the fruit of the Spirit, in Gal. v. 22, joy 
follows love. Wishing the Philippians to mount up to 
the highest and purest joy, he prays that their ''love 
may abound yet more and more in knowledge." — Chap- 
ter I. 9. There is no such thing in earth or heaven as 
love in a finite being becoming perfect in volume or de- 
gree of strength. The more that men and angels know 



84 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

of God the more they will love him. As knowledge of 
God is capable of eternal increase, so there will be 
scope for endless advancement in love and joy. Mathe- 
maticians prove that there is a curve of such a nature 
(the hyperbola), that it will forever approach a straight 
line in the same plane, but never touch it. Such a 
curve is the human soul in its capacity for ever-in- 
creasing knowlege and love of God. Among finite ap- 
titudes this talent of eternal growth is a faculty having 
semi-divine dimensions. In it God's image gleams out 
most clearly. The knowledge, in this text, in which 
love mounts up to higher and higher degrees, is epi- 
gnosis, experimental, certain, and clear. It is the heart 
of the believer touching the heart of God. The head 
of pride is always agnostic, the heart of love is always 
epignostic (not in the dictionary, but signifies knowing 
certainly). 

Turning now to another prayer of St. Paul in i Thess. 
in. 12, 13, we find that there is to be an ever ''increas- 
ing and abounding love one toward another, and toward 
all men," in order to establishment in holiness. It is 
taught elsewhere in St. Paul's epistles that love is the 
element in which holiness exists {Eph. i. 4; i Tim. i. 5) ; 
but here we are assured that this love must have a 
man-ward, as well as a God-ward direction. Hence, a 
tart holiness, a bitter holiness, a sour holiness, an en- 
vious holiness, is a contradiction and an impossibility. 
Nor will the careful student of Paul's magnificent lyric 
on love, in i C(?r. xiii., find any such combination possi- 
ble as perfect love and arrogance, or censoriousness, or 
self-conceit, or headstrongness. "Love," when purged 
of all dross, '' suffereth long and is kind ; love envieth 



PRAYERS FOR THE SANCTIFICATION OF BELIEVERS. 8$ 

not ; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, and doth 
not behave itself unseemly." Professors of heart purity, 
especially those who associate themselves together al- 
most exclusively, are in danger of taking on some of 
these unamiable qualities, and of cherishing unchari- 
table feelings towards those Christians whose weaker 
wings of faith have not borne them up to the Pisgah 
tops of grace. As a safeguard against this peril we 
recommend a frequent and searching self-examination, 
with this chapter as a touch-stone. The result would 
be an increase in the number of ''hearts unblamable 
in holiness before God," whose " eyes run to and fro 
throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in 
behalf of them whose hearts are perfect towards 
him." — 2 Chron. xvi. 9. 

The interpretation is erroneous, that the establish- 
ment in holiness, '' at the coming of our Lord Jesus," 
signifies the completion of our sanctification at that 
time. Rather, it will be in that day that the result 
of the Spirit's perfect purifying work in this life will 
be exhibited to the universe. The same remark applies 
to that strong proof-text (i Thess. v. 23, R. F!), "And 
the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly ; and may 
your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire with- 
out blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
The aorist tense of the verb " sanctify," denoting sin- 
gleness of action, as distinguished from continuance 
or repetition, strengthens our position that there is no 
post mortem cleansing taught in these passages. This 
remark is for the special benefit of some good, and 
otherwise orthodox, theologians, who reject the modern 
philosophical inference that a change of relation to 



86 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

God's law from condemnation to justification, in cer- 
tain cases, may take place after death, but look with fa- 
vor on the doctrine of the completion after death of 
the sanctification which began in the new birth. The 
latter is as destitute of scriptural foundation as the 
former. The only purgatory for sin is in the blood 
of Christ. To assert that this purgatory stretches out 
from death to the Day of Judgment is to pass over the 
gulf between Protestantism based on the Bible, and 
Romanism built on traditions. Prayer for the un- 
sanctified dead would logically follow. Let me rather 
pray : — 

*' O thou great Power ! in whom I move, 

For whom I live, to whom I die, 

Behold me through thy beams of love, 

Whilst in this vale of tears I sigh ; 
And cleanse my sordid soul within 
By thy Christ's blood, the Bath of sin ! 
No hallowed oils, no grains, I need; 
No rags of saints, no purging fire; 
One crimson drop of David's seed 
Is all the cleansing I desire." 



ST. PAUL INVENTS STRONGER WORDS. 8/ 



XVI. 

ST. PAUL INVENTS STRONGER WORDS FOR COM- 
PLETE DELIVERANCE FROM SIN. 

When the gospel came into the world as a message 
from God, it selected one of the many languages of 
men for the communication and preservation of its 
revelation of truth. The Greek tongue was honored 
by being chosen as the golden pitcher in which to con- 
vey down the ages the water of life to a thirsty and 
dying world. But some words had become so steeped 
in sensuality that they could not be used. They car- 
ried such a savor of impurity about them that the 
Holy Spirit abstained from bringing the truth of God 
into polluting contact with them. One of the three 
verbs signifying *'to love" had become so saturated 
with lustful ideas that it was utterly unsuitable to ex- 
press the holy love which is the central principle of 
Christianity. Hence it and its derivatives were re- 
jected. In some instances new words were coined, as 
the noun agape, love, which is not found in the so- 
called profane writers. 

It is our purpose in our course of Greek Testament 
readings now begun to limit our researches to those 
changes and inventions in the language which followed 
the day of Pentecost. The study of the newly coined 



8S HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

words will be specially instructive, as showing very 
plainly what truths of the gospel are so far above 
natural religion and Mosaism as to require newly 
created forms of expression. We will endeavor to 
make ourselves intelligible to the non-Greek reader. 
As it will be necessary to indicate the word under criti- 
cism, we will write it in English letters. Our present 
reading will set forth the words invented by St. Paul 
to express t/ie thoroughness of the Spirit ' s work in entire 
sanctification. It would seem that the inspired apostle 
foresaw the future denial of this vital truth in nearly 
every age of the church, and he determined to fortify 
it with the strongest possible terms in the Greek, and 
to strengthen these terms by putting them together 
in novel compound words. 

Col. ii. 1 1 contains a notable instance of strengthen- 
ing his assertion of the completeness of the cleansing 
of the believer, by the invention of a noun found no- 
where else in the whole range of Greek literature. 
The word is apekdusis, ''putting off the body of the 
flesh " [R. v.), not '' of the sins " of the flesh, as in the 
A. v., which is a gloss teaching deliverance from sin- 
ning. The R. V. teaches the greater deliverance from 
the sin-principle or tendency called original sin. Let 
us scrutinize Paul's invented compound noun, made 
up of two prepositions, apo and ek, and the verb duo, 
all signifying the putting off and laying aside, as a 
garment, an allusion to actual circumcision. Meyer's 
comment shows the strength of this word : " Whereas 
the spiritual circumcision divinely performed consisted 
in a complete parting and doijtg away with this body 
[of sin], in so far as God, by means of this ethical cir- 



ST. PAUL INVENTS STRONGER WORDS. 89 

cumcision, has taken off and removed the sinful body 
from man [the two acts are expressed by the double 
compound], like a garment drawn off and laid aside." 
The italics are Meyer's. If this does not mean the 
complete and eternal separation of depravity, like 
the perpetual effect of cutting off and casting away 
the foreskin, then it is impossible to express the idea 
of entire cleansing in any human language. This 
radical change of nature from sinful to holy is effected 
"by, or by means of, the circumcision of Christ," i.e., 
which is produced through Christ by the agency of 
the Holy Spirit procured by him. We do not accept 
the suggestion of Meyer that this Christian transforma- 
tion is represented in its ideal aspect. God does not 
tantalize his children with unattainable ideals. He 
does not command perfection where it cannot be real- 
ized through his grace. He is not a hard master, reap- 
ing perfection where he has sown only imperfection. 
" His commandments are not grievous." 

I Thess. V. 23 is a text which implies that the regen- 
erate are not entirely purified, and that they may be in 
answer to prayer. This implies that it is in this life. 
The expanded " amen " after this prayer, " Faithful is he 
that calleth you, who will also do it," is a declaration that 
it is God, and not death, who is the author of this work. 
There is an important word, holoteleisy which is found 
nowhere else in the New Testament nor in the Sep- 
tuagint. It is an adjective in form with an adverbial 
meaning (Kuhner, 264.3). If Paul intended to pray 
that the Thessalonians might all be sanctified, there 
were three every-day adjectives which he might have 
used to express ** all." He employed this unique term, 



go HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

meaning " wholly to the end," or "quite completely," 
because he had realized in his own experience the ut- 
termost sanctifi cation, and he saw that it was the priv- 
ilege of every believer. This rare and peculiar word is 
rendered in the Vulgate per omnia, " in your collective 
powers and parts." " Marking," says Ellicott, " more 
emphatically that thoroughness and pervasive holiness 
which the following words specify with further exact- 
ness." He thus translates it: ''But may the God of 
peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit 
and soul and body be preserved whole without blame in 
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." A Greek ver- 
sion of the Old Testament was made by Aquila in 
which this word occurs in Deut. xiii. i6, to express the 
idea of "every whit." We have been explicit in defin- 
ing this word as indicating the completeness of individ- 
ual sanctification which is presently presented in detail, 
and not the cleansing of the totality of the Thessalo- 
nian church — may God sanctify you all. Of course 
the apostle's prayer for the entire purification of the 
individual includes every individual in the church. 

But there is another word in this verse that occurs 
nowhere else in the New Testament except in James 
i. 4. It is holoklaron, " whole," an emphatic predicate 
referring to all three following substantives, — spirit, 
soul, and body. The spirit is the highest and distinc- 
tive part of man, his real personality, responsible and 
naturally immortal, whereby we are receptive of the 
Holy Spirit through saving faith in Jesus Christ. In 
the unregenerate it is crushed down and subordinated 
to the animal sojil, the seat of the passions and desires 
which we have in common with the brutes. The next 



ST. PAUL INVENTS STRONGER WORDS. 9I 

component of man, for the entire sanctification of which 
Paul prays, is the body, the material envelope of the 
immaterial personality and its animal propensities. He 
says much in his epistles about the sanctification of the 
body, " Know ye not that your bodies are members of 
Christ ? Know ye not that your body is a temple of 
the Holy Ghost ? glorify God therefore in your body." — 
I Cor. vi. 15-20, R. V. The body is sanctified wholly 
when its members are used by the rectified will only 
"as instruments of righteousness unto God." Paul in 
this detailed sanctification leaves no more place for sin 
continuing till death than he does in 2 Cor, vii. i, where 
"all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit" is to be 
cleansed in the act of " perfecting holiness." This word 
for "whole " which Paul has used only in this place sig- 
nifies intact, possessing all that belongs to it, and having 
nothing superfluous. Sin is an excrescence, a deformity 
which this peculiar word excludes. 

In conclusion, on this point we would say that the 
spirit is preserved blameless in its wholeness when the 
voice of truth always rules it ; the soul when it resists 
all the charms of the senses; and, lastly, the <5<?^when 
it is not abused as the instrument of shameful actions. 

Heb. vii. 25, "Wherefore also he is able to save to 
the uttermost," etc. The Greek for " uttermost " is 
panteles. This is the only place in the New Testament 
where it is used, except negatively, " in no wise," in 
Luke xiii. 1 1. 

It is a strong compound word, meaning "all to the 
end." The R. V., margin, is "completely." This is its 
true meaning, " perfectly, completely, to the very end," 
says Delitzsch, " but without necessarily any ret-erence 



92 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

to time." Again he says, '' Christ is able to save in 
everyway, in all respects, unto the uttermost; so that 
every want and need, in all its breadth and depth, is 
utterly done away." This annotation is a perfect an- 
swer to his argument in his Biblical psychology in proof 
of *' the unabolished antinomy " in Rom. vii. ** The law 
in the members " warring until death against the law 
of the mind, and bringing the Christian at his best 
earthly estate into captivity to the law or uniform sway 
of sin. Let us believe the exegete rather than the the- 
ologian. It is always safer to trust an honest and 
scholarly expounder than a warped and traditional dog- 
matist. Modern interpreters unanimously reject the 
idea of some of the ancient annotators that ''utter- 
most " has here reference to illimitable future time. 
Besides being unscholarly, this view involves the her- 
esy of Canon Farrar's " eternal hope " for wicked souls 
after death. 

Why was Paul constrained to invent these new and 
strong terms } Because he was divinely called to de- 
scribe what never existed before Pentecost, and for 
that reason had no name, — human souls entirely sanc- 
tified through the mission of the Comforter. Why did 
he not do the same wonderful works before Pentecost, 
seeing that as God he was omnipresent and omnipo- 
tent .? He had not the same tools to work with, the 
completed facts of the gospel ending with the ascen- 
sion of Christ from the footstool to the throne. " Sanc- 
tify them through the truth." 



NEW WORDS FOR SUPERABOUNDING GRACE. 93 



XVII. 

ST. PAUL'S NEW WORDS FOR SUPERABOUNDING 
GRACE. 

We will next examine the newly coined words to 
express the victory over sin and the superabounding grace 
accessible to believers since the coining of the Paraclete on 
the day of Pentecost. 

Col. ii. 15, ''Having spoiled principalities and pow- 
ers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over 
them in it " (the cross). Here and in one other pas- 
sage Paul uses the verb thriambuo, to triumph. It is 
found but twice in the Bible, and only as descriptive of 
Pentecostal grace, or, as in this text, of Christ's com- 
plete victory over all evil angels and spirits, even the 
highest in dignity and power. The cross was the 
Waterloo defeat of all malignant personalities. In 
what way } Let me explain. Love is power. The 
highest expression of love is the highest power. The 
cross is the highest manifestation of love possible in 
the universe. When Christ, the Son of God, volunta- 
rily bowed his head in death, as a self-sacrifice for men, 
even for his enemies, he shook the empire of sin to its 
very foundations. His last cry on the cross, with a 
loud voice, was the shout of eternal triumph and vic- 
tory. In a celebrated cathedral in Europe there is be- 



94 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

hind the altar a cross, with a ladder leaning against it, 
as if it had been just used in taking down the body of 
Christ. Beyond a hill in the background of the pic- 
ture are seen the heads of four men who are bearing 
it reverently to the tomb. At the foot of the cross 
a stream of blood is running down the hill towards the 
spectator. In rapid flight from that crimson rill is seen 
a serpent instinctively hastening from his conqueror — 
the painter was a good theologian. But how does this 
victory of Christ help the Christian when hard pressed 
by the tempter ? It gives great courage to continue 
the fight, when we are assured that we are battling with 
a vanquished foe, and that the victor is still in the 
field and within call, shouting to all his soldiers, ''Be 
of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Faith 
makes his victory ours. 

Rev. xii. ii, ''And they overcame him [Satan] by 
the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testi- 
mony." The blood of atonement, so appropriated as 
to prompt to unceasing testimony, is the infallible 
weapon of victory. So long as Satan could point to 
the broken law, he could say, "Your case is hopeless, 
there is no pardon, no mercy in law ; it is a straight- 
edge to lay on your character and show its crookedness. 
It cannot make you straight. It must condemn you. 
So all your attempts to be righteous are vain. You 
would do wisely to throw off all allegiance to that hard 
Master who reaps where he has not sown, whose law 
is impracticable, and whose commandments are griev- 
ous." But the death of Christ puts a new hope into 
the despairing soul. It brings to an end the reign of 
law, so far as it is the ground of pardon. The blood 



NEW WORDS FOR SUPERABOUNDING GRACE. 95 

of Christ lays a practicable basis for the forgiveness 
of sins. Thus the devil and his hostile powers are 
deprived of their strength, which rested on the law as 
the sole ground of justification. 

2 Cor. ii. 14, " Now thanks be unto God, which al- 
ways causeth us to triumph in Christ." The R. V. 
reads, ** always leadeth us in triumph," not as the con- 
quered, but as the ministers of the victory, the soldiers 
of Christ, who are in the triumphal procession to share 
the honor. The difference between the same unique 
verb, to triumph, used here, and the ordinary nikao, is 
that it implies not only victory, but the most public 
display of it. In Roman triumphal processions incense 
and perfumes were burnt near the conqueror with dif- 
ferent effects, pleasing some but sickening others ; to 
which custom the apostle beautifully alludes in the 
next verse, "■ For we are a sweet savor unto God, in 
them that are saved, and in them that perish." This 
passage is an encouragement to every consecrated 
laborer in the Lord's vineyard. No faithful labor will 
lose its reward. The number of them that are saved 
may not require large figures in the statistical report ; 
the number that perish may be much larger. Never- 
theless, he who scans motives and notes faithful work 
in obscure places, unappreciated by man, is preparing 
a triumph for him at the grand Review. Of this he 
has day by day a foretaste furnished by the indwelling 
Comforter. Hence he is a victor in every place and 
every hour. 

Says Chrysostom, ** Thanks be to God who triumphs 
us, that is, makes us illustrious in the eyes of all. Our 
persecutors are the trophies which we erect in every 



96 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

land." The eighth and last beatitude of Jesus, the last 
because it is the sweetest and richest, is pronounced 
upon them that are persecuted for his sake. St. Paul 
had tasted persecution again and again. '' Of the Jews 
five times received I forty stripes save one ; thrice was 
I beaten with rods, once was I stoned." Yet so glori- 
ously did God sustain him that he could express his 
superiority to all his sufferings for Christ, only by bor- 
rowing the pageantry of the Roman general making a 
solemn and magnificent entrance into Rome after an 
important victory. This God's abounding grace ena- 
bled him to do "always" and " in every place." Let 
the Fainthearts and Littlefaiths in the church study 
these words of the great apostle and take courage, and 
put unwavering trust in the Captain of their salvation. 

Rom. via. 37, ''Nay, in all these things we are more 
than conquerors through him that loved us." Here 
St. Paul's habit of inventing stronger terms expressive 
of victory than any found in the Greek language ap- 
pears again in strengthening the every-day verb nikao, 
to conquer, by prefixing the preposition htipeVy the 
Latin and English super. "We are supervictorious." 
This compound verb is found nowhere else in the 
whole range of Greek literature. This struggle to lay 
hold of adequate expressions, this straining of ordinary 
speech till it breaks out in unheard-of inventions, indi- 
cates the greatness of the writer's conception of God's 
wondrous grace surpassing the believer's utmost need. 

Rom. V. 20, " But where sin abounded, grace did 
much more abound." Here St. Paul invents a term 
which he repeats in 2 Cor. vii., making the strong com- 
pound verb " superabound," the original of which is 



NEW WORDS FOR SUPERABOUNDING GRACE. 97 

unique in both sacred and secular Greek. Why these 
daring inventions by a man of fine literary taste, edu- 
cated in the University of Tarsus, the greatest centre 
of scholastic culture east of Athens .'' Classical authors 
usually abstain from the use of words coined by them- 
selves, regarding them as barbarisms. Why did St. 
Paul deviate from a fundamental canon of rhetoric ? 
The river of divine grace flowing through his soul was 
too full for its ordinary bed ; it must overflow its banks, 
and cut for itself a broader channel, and become an 
Amazon for all the thirsty nations and generations. 
The constraint of the Holy Spirit caused these devia- 
tions from the standard of reputable use, and prompted 
this outburst of invented words. There is no other 
explanation. I want no other. This magnifies God's 
mercy and love. It shows how the richness of grace 
transcends the poverty of nature. In our second text 
(2 Cor. vii. 4), '* I superabound in joy," we have a phrase 
that matches St. Peter's "joy unspeakable and full of 
glory." 

Why should so many persons in Christian lands, and 
some even in the Christian church, be eagerly running 
to earthly springs to slake their thirst, while the 
heavens are pouring down Niagaras of living water } 

" Love divine, all love excelling, 
Joy of heaven to earth come down." 

I Tint. i. 14, ''The grace of our Lord abounded 
exceedingly." Here St. Paul prefixes the super to an- 
other verb, which itself signifies to superabound, giving 
it the force of ''exceedingly to superabound." This 
verb, huperpleonazo^ appears nowhere else in the entire 



95 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

volume of Greek literature. Before the outpouring of 
the Holy Spirit, " faith " and *' love " in human souls 
were streams so small that they needed no wider terms 
for their description. Thanks to God for bringing me 
into being in the glorious dispensation of the Com- 
forter ! It is preferable to the days of Christ's flesh. 

No New Testament writer except St. Paul uses the 
compound verb hiiperballo, to exceed, excel, surpass. 
He has written it five times as descriptive of the graces 
of the Holy Ghost, who has been aptly styled the com- 
munication of God, as the Son is the revelation of 
him. The texts are 2 Cor. iii. 10, ''The glory that 
excelleth;" ix. 14, ''Exceeding grace;" Eph. i. 19, 
"Exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who 
believe; ii. 7, "The exceeding riches of His grace;" 
iii. 19, "The love of Christ which surpasseth knowl- 
edge." We have not time to unfold their wealth of 
meaning. Let each reader do this for himself. 

No other writer in the New Testament has used the 
noun '^ huperbole^' transferred into English as hyper- 
bole. The texts in which this is applied to spiritual 
blessings are i Cor. xii. 31, "And a still more excel- 
lent way show I unto you;" 2 Cor. iv. 7, 17, "More 
and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory." 
They are well worth studying by those who are aspir- 
ing for a large view of God's promises, as a preparation 
for their realized fulfilment through increased faith. 



ST. PAUL S NEW PHRASES. 99 



XVIII. 

ST. PAUL'S NEW PHRASES, — WITHOUT SIN, WITH- 
OUT STUMBLING, WITHOUT SPOT, WITHOUT 
OFFENCE. 

The wonderful change wrought in believers by the 
outpouring of the Holy Spirit is very noticeable, es- 
pecially to the student of the Greek Testament. 
Strong words not found in the Old Testament, nor in 
the four Gospels, are either invented by the apostles or 
borrowed from classical Greek, to convey an adequate 
conception of the heavenly glory which has come into 
earthen vessels. 

Jude 24. One such word, aptaistos, ''from falling," 
St. Jude uses in that remarkable ascription with which 
this brief epistle concludes. The R, V. reads, *' Now 
unto him who is able to guard you from stumbling." 
This is more difficult than the A. V., inasmuch as the 
unsteady walker is more prone to stumble than to fall. 
The indwelling Spirit in his fulness can save even from 
stumbling. 

Of course this does not signify intellectual mistakes. 
It is salvation from moral failures, however slight. 
Hence the Vulgate, the supreme standard in the 
Roman Catholic Church, has sine peccato^ " without 
sin." This is the real significance of this adjective. 



lOO HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

Christ has sent down from heaven a personal guide, 
who is able to keep every Christian from the commis- 
sion of sin. Let every doubter try it for himself. 
Satan is very busy in keeping in circulation the false- 
hood that freedom from sin is impracticable and im- 
possible in this world. He who believes this lie will 
continue to commit sin. He will stupefy his own con- 
science with the idea that sin is inevitable. Soon he 
will begin to fight against the scriptural doctrine, ^ 
" Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." 
There is no doctrine that the devil more cordially hates 
than the possibility of holiness perfected this side of 
the grave. When he gets a Christian minister to take 
his view, and to advocate the necessity of sinning, he 
is specially well-pleased. His personal attention to 
that parish is no longer required. The word aspilos, 
"without spot," is used four times in the New Testa- 
ment ; once as descriptive of Christ as a lamb without 
blemish, i Pet. i. 19, and thrice in the portrayal of 
Christian character. Let us look at these latter in 
detail. 

2 Pet. in. 14. "Be diligent, that ye may be found 
of him in peace, without spot, and blameless." This is 
the end towards which we are exhorted to make an 
effort. Some may object that this spotlessness is not 
to exist in us during our earthly probation ; it is only 
to be found in us in the day of judgment, to which the 
context points. If it is found in us, then it must have 
been in us before death, unless we assume that it is the 
work of death, or of some sanctifying agency after 
death. Neither of these last alternatives is supported 
by the holy Scriptures. But the other two texts de- 



ST. PAUL S NEW PHRASES. lOI 

termine the time beyond all controversy, i Tim. vi. 
14, " That thou keep this commandment without spot, 
until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." This 
is the divinely inspired charge of Paul to Timothy, 
relating the manner of his life while in this world. 
God makes the same requirement of the laity as he 
does of the ministry. Both are to be equally pure. 
This is certainly indicated in our next text. 

James i. 27 includes keeping ourselves "unspotted 
from the world " as one of the essential elements of 
pure religion. This seems as impossible to the man of 
weak faith as it would for a white-robed lady to dance 
among dye-tubs or tar-buckets without being smirched. 
But " all things are possible to him that believeth." 
This world needs a gospel which gives victory over 
sin. There are two stages of this victory. The first 
is deliverance from sinning. The new birth introduces 
the sin-sick soul into a state of triumph over actual 
sins, giving him the ability not to sin. " There is 
therefore now no condemnation to them that are in 
Christ Jesus;" that is, no consciousness of acts of wil- 
ful sin. Justification saves from sinning, but not from 
the tendency to sin, improperly called sin, because it 
lacks the voluntary element essential to guilt. Con- 
trolled tendencies to sin are consistent with non-con- 
demnation, or justification. 

But in these proclivities to sin, though repressed, 
there is peril and cause of inward strife, the flesh war- 
ring against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. 
When this war ends by the extinction and annihilation 
of the flesh as the lurking-place of the sin-principle, 
there is deliverance from sin also, as well as from sin- 



102 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

ning. Justification, implying regeneration, saves from 
sinning ; entire sanctification saves from sin. 

Much like this word is another used by Paul three 
times, and found in no other New Testament writer. 
This word is aproskopos, ''without offence" ''toward 
God and men," as in Acts xxiv. i6. This was the 
kind of conscience the Apostle to the Gentiles " exer- 
cised himself to have alway." He has left on record 
no confession of his failure to hit the high target at 
which he aimed. There is no doleful lamentation over 
crooked paths ; no self-reproach for falling below his 
own splendid ideals. His own unoffending life gave 
him the vantage-ground in exhorting others to the 
same style of character. In Phil. i. lo he prays "that 
love may abound yet more and more in perfect knowl- 
edge and all discernment, . . . that ye may be sincere 
and void of offence." Note that this is "against the 
day of Christ " (Ellicott), as a probationary preparation 
for the judgment, and hence it is a proof-text for entire 
holiness, inward and outward, this side of the grave. 
In I Cor. X. 32, Paul exhorts to unoffending conduct 
far beyond the realm of ethics in the domain of things 
morally indifferent, such as eating flesh when it might 
occasion a weak brother to stumble. Here he appeals 
to his own perfectly unselfish example as a model for 
the Corinthian church. "As I also in all things please 
all, seeking not my own advantage, but that of the 
many, that they may be saved." 

In his First Epistle to TimotJiy, Paul three times em- 
ploys another adjective expressive of purity, found 
nowhere else in sacred Greek. It is ajtepilaptos, " irre- 
proachable," or "irreprehensible," applied first to can- 



ST. PAUL S NEW PHRASES. IO3 

didates for sacred orders {Hi. 2), then to Timothy 
himself {vi. 14), and finally to the believing widows 
{v. 7) and, by implication, to all Christians. It is a 
strong ethical term, implying that one is not worthy 
of reprehension, even if he should be reprehended by 
his fellow-men. 

We come now to amojnatos, *' without rebuke," found 
only twice in the New Testament {Phil. ii. i 5), '' that 
ye may be children of God without rebuke," and (2 Pet. 
in. 14) a text already quoted, "that ye may be found 
in him without spot and blameless," or without rebuke. 

There is another word for unblamable, aniomos^ used 
by Paul three times in portraying perfect Christians. 
Eph. i. 4, " According as he hath chosen us [believers] 
in him before the foundation of the world, that we 
should be holy, and without blame before him in love." 
Love is always the sphere in which holiness and blame- 
lessness are found. Eph. v. 27, " That it [the church] 
should be holy and without blemish." Col. i. 22, '' Un- 
blamable and unreprovable in his sight ; " not merely in 
man's sight, who is incapable of penetrating the invis- 
ible springs of action wherein real character lies. Jude 
24, R. v., " And to set you before the presence of his 
glory, without blemish in exceeding joy." We are not 
to be found faultless in some dark corner of the uni- 
verse, where flaws and flecks would be unnoticed, but 
faultless amid the splendors of his ineffable glory. 
This is what divine grace as mediated by the Holy 
Spirit, the Sanctifier, is able to do for the weakest 
saint who perseveringly trusts in Jesus Christ, the 
adorable Son of God and Saviour of men. 

Another once-used word, avietakinatos, '' unmovable," 



104 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

occurs in i Cor, xv. 58, " that ye may be unmovable," 
like the granite cliff unshaken by the tornado and 
the tidal wave. Such vertebrate Christians men and 
women dwelling in houses of clay may become when 
'' strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner 
man." 



ST. Paul's "election" is unto sanctification. 105 



XIX. 

ST. PAUL'S " ELECTION " IS UNTO SANCTIFICATION. 

It is our purpose in the present Reading to discuss 
the post-pentecostal nouns expressive of sanctification 
and holiness. They are four in number. They were not 
used in the four Gospels because the Agent who pro- 
duces holiness was not yet given as the Sanctifier. He 
is called the Holy Spirit, not to distinguish him from 
the Father and the Son, who are equally holy, but to 
designate his office, to create and conserve purity in 
believing hearts. It may be that he was not sent to do 
his official work before Christ's ascension, because his 
instrument, the sword of gospel truth, was not com- 
pletely forged and tempered, like a Damascus blade. 
Gospel truth is a series of historical facts beginning 
with the manger-cradle and ending with the ascent 
from God's footstool to his throne. There may have 
been another reason for delaying the gift of the Para- 
clete. It is reasonable that the incarnate Son of 
God should be glorified in heaven before he should 
be glorified on earth. For the work of sanctification 
glorifies Christ, inasmuch as faith in him, implying 
perfect self-surrender to him, is the indispensable 
condition. 

The great word for sanctification is hagiasmos. It 



I06 HALF-HOURS WITH ST, PAUL. 

occurs ten times in the Xew Testament. St. Paul uses 
it nine times and St. Peter once. In the A. [" it is 
translated by ''holiness'" five times, and five by *'sanc- 
tification." The i?. K always renders it by " sanctifi- 
cation." This is the more accurate version, since the 
ending vws in Greek means an act, as does the ending 
^zon in English, while the ending niss, as holiness, sig- 
nifies a quality or state. 

Hence the revisers have furnished five new proof- 
texts to the definition of sanctification as an act in the 
catechism of the M. E. Church. Ans. 57. '' Sanctifi- 
cation is that act of divine srrace wherebv we are made 
holy." The act is that of removing impurity existing 
in the nature of one already born of the Spirit. De- 
liverance from sin as a tendencv born with us is the 
act of God through the Holy Spirit. 

2 TJiess. ?V. 13, ''' God chose you from the beginning 
unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief 
of the truth." The election was made in view of the 
foreknown purifying Avork of the Holy Spirit wrought 
on the human condition of freely believing gospel 
truth. All foreknown, persevering believers are fore- 
ordained unto eternal life. This is the key to the first 
chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Instead of 
'' us " read '* believers," to whom the epistle is addressed, 
"the faithful in Christ." 

I Pet. i. 2, ''Elect ... in sanctification of the Spirit/' 
because it is the Spirit who accomplishes the cleansing. 
The human condition here is "obedience," a svnonvme 
for faith, as disobedience and unbelief are interchange- 
able terms in the Greek. Rom. vi. 19, "Even so now 
present your members as servants to righteousness 



ST. PAUL S ''ELECTION IS UNTO SANCTIFICATION. IO7 

unto sanctification," the goal of Christian purification in 
the present life. This is the aim of every regenerate 
man who places his mental and bodily powers at the 
disposal of righteousness, as a ruler over him. The 
purpose of justification, as here stated by St. Paul, is 
to open the way for entire sanctification. The same 
truth is stated in other words in verse 22, " But now 
being made free from sin [as a despot], and become 
servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, 
and the end eternal life." 

The power of sin is broken by regenerating grace. 
The ripe fruit of this state of victory over actual sin is 
sanctification, which is viewed as done not at death, but 
before we reach the end, which is eternal life. The 
plain teaching of this text is that amid this wicked 
world the sanctified man is to stand laden with luscious 
fruit many years before he is called to his eternal re- 
ward. " Ye are the salt of the earth." " Ye are the 
light of the world." 

Heb. xii. 14, " Follow after peace with all men, and 
the sanctification without which no man shall see the 
Lord." Only holy beings can rise to the sight of the 
Holy One. Whenever the Scriptures speak of the di- 
vine vision as the prerogative of the sanctified, it is a 
bHssful, spiritual perception of God here and now. 
''Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
When the heart is purged of sin the eye is purged of 
film. President Edwards, even when a young man, had 
such enrapturing communion with God, and such a per- 
ception of his glory, that He seemed to be the only solid 
reality, while all earthly things seemed unsubstantial 
and shadowy. "No man knoweth the Father but the 



I08 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

Son, and he to whom the Son reveals him." The Son 
reveals the Father by sending the Holy Spirit to anoint 
the inward eye with eye-salve. The same truth is im- 
plied in the declaration, " He that loveth not knoweth 
not God." The implication is that love has eyes. But 
where does evangelical love come from ? Turn to 
Rom. V. 5, and you will find the secret. " The love of 
God hath been shed abroad [a Niagara outpouring] in 
our hearts through the Holy Ghost which was given 
unto us." 

Spiritual perception comes from love, love comes from 
the Spirit, who perfectly fills the sanctified heart to the 
exclusion of the sin-ward trend. Hence sanctification 
gives clear spiritual eyesight. It is the assurance of 
faith, or faith merged into certain knowledge, Ep/i. iv. 
13. '' Unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge 
of the Son of God " — not two unities, as the faulty 
punctuation teaches, but one, as in Westcott and Hort's 
Greek Testament. To all doubting and hence weak 
Christians let me speak a word of cheer. Keep on 
trusting in Christ. The path of faith leads to the wide 
open door of knowledge, where the sun shines day and 
night all the year round. " For I know him whom I 
have believed." An ill use is sometimes made of Heb. 
xii. 14, by quoting it as a threatening against the regen- 
erate who do not realize the completion of the work of 
inward cleansing. There are no threatenings in the 
Word of God against the persevering sons of God. 
*' If children, then heirs ; heirs of God and joint heirs 
with Christ." Heirship hinges on sonship, not on de- 
velopment into perfect manhood. Hence it is neither 
scriptural nor wise to take Mt. Sinai for your pulpit 



ST. PAULS "ELECTION IS UNTO SANCTIFICATION. ICQ 

when you preach entire sanctification. Preach this 
glorious doctrine, "always drawing, not driving." — 
Wesley. 

The word hagiasmos is sometimes used to denote 
either the act of God, or the believer's own act of pres- 
ervation of the holiness imparted by the Holy Spirit, 
as in I Thess. iv. 3, 4, where abstinence is enjoined 
from fornication, to the conscience of the pagan world 
at that time an act of utter moral indifference, as it is 
to this day. Another text for the act of preservation 
is I Tim. a. 15, " If they continue in faith and love and 
sanctification with sobriety." 

For holiness as a quality there are three words in the 
Greek Testament, used only by St. Paul, and each used 
only twice. We come now to a word not found in clas- 
sical Greek — hagiotaes, 2 Cor. i. 12. "For our glori- 
fying is this . . . that in holiness and sincerity of God, 
not in fleshly wisdom . . . we behaved ourselves in the 
world." This is a very emphatic profession of holi- 
ness. The same word is found also in Heb. xii. 10, 
" That we may be partakers of his holiness," not in 
degree, but in kind. This is the recovery of the lost 
moral image of God, a glorious possibility to every 
believer. 

Hagnotaes is a word not quite unknown in classical 
Greek. St. Paul uses it in 2 Cor. vi. 6, " In pureness." 
This is another instance where holiness is unequivocally 
professed. In 2 Cor. xi. 3, St. Paul again employs the 
same term to express his fear lest the Corinthians had 
been "corrupted from the simplicity and the pttrity 
that is toward Christ." The peculiarity of this word is 
that it means purity, and not consecration. That is 



no HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

true also of the next term, Hagneia, in i Tim. iv. 12, 
and V. 2, "In purity," "in all purity." These texts 
prove the possibility of inward cleanness in this life, 
for they both relate to intercourse in human society as 
now constituted. 



ST. PAUL MAGNIFIES THE MEANING OF PERFECTION. I I I 



XX. 

ST. PAUL MAGNIFIES THE MEANING OF PERFECTION. 

In prosecuting our purpose to exhibit those words 
invented by the apostles, especially by Paul, to convey 
down the ages the fulness of that grace which came on 
the day of Pentecost — and came to stay, glory be to the 
Giver — we now examine the new terms expressive of 
sanctified and perfected character. The immediate aim 
of the gospel is the transformation of man's depraved 
moral nature ; the ultimate end is to glorify God in this 
transfiguration of human spirits restored to the image 
of their Creator. 

The word teleiotaes, perfectness, occurs but rarely, 
not only in profane, but also in Biblical Greek. It first 
appears in the New Testament after the outpouring of 
the Spirit. It is used only twice. 

Col. Hi. 14. "And above all these things put on love, 
which is the bond of perfectness." — R. V. Meyer's 
translation is very instructive — ^Hn addition to all this, 
however, put on love by which Christian pe^rfection is 
knit!' His idea of Paul's meaning is that " Love is to 
be put on like an upper garment, embracing all, because 
love brings it about, that the moral perfection is estab- 
lished in its organic unity as an integral whole." The 
substance of this exegesis is that all the individual vir- 



112 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

tues are first brought to perfection by love, and then 
these separate factors are united by love into a symmet- 
rical whole. How love accomplishes this is beautifully 
shown in Paul's immortal eulogium of this perfect arch- 
itect of Christian character in i Cor. xiii., where love is 
spoken of first, as the central sun, and all the other vir- 
tues are rays, radiating therefrom. But in Col. iii. 14, 
to our surprise, it is mentioned last. This was a rhe- 
torical necessity, because of the figure in verse 12, of 
putting on the virtues as different articles of apparel, 
compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffer- 
ing or patience, and a forgiving spirit. Love, from its 
very nature, in so far as it includes in principle the col- 
lective virtues, necessarily has assigned to it, in the 
making of the Christian's perfect toilet, the place of the 
upper garment. He is then fit to mingle in the society 
of archangels, and in this court-dress be presented to 
King Jesus himself. May neither the reader nor the 
writer of these words, through lack of this garment, " be 
ashamed before him at his coming." How natural the 
precept that follows the description of a saint faultlessly 
arrayed in the wardrobe of a complete righteousness. 
" Let the peace of Christ" (R. V.), that holy satisfaction 
of mind wrought by Christ through the Spirit, the 
blessed inner rest and delicious repose, "arbitrate in 
your hearts." It is very gratifying to find John Wesley, 
the heroic defender of Christian perfection in a darker 
age, so perfectly vindicated by Meyer, pronounced by 
Dr. Schaff, "the ablest exegete of his age." He even 
uses the very phrase, " Christian perfection," for which 
Wesley was almost snowed under by hostile pamphlets 
written by his clerical brethren of the Anglican Church. 
The world moves, thank God. 



ST. PAUL MAGNIFIES THE MEANING OF PERFECTION. II3 

Heb. vi. I, '' Therefore let us cease to speak of the 
first principles of Christ, and press on unto perfection." 
— R. V. This is the only other passage where this Greek 
word for perfection is found. It is here represented 
not as something realized by the lapse of time, or by 
unconscious growth, and, least of all, attainable only at 
death. We are exhorted to press on against wind and 
tide, till we reach this "land of corn and wine and oil," 
and take up our abode. For the Greek preposition 
**unto" here embraces both motion to a place and rest 
in it, and cannot mean an aim at an unattainable ideal. 
Delitzsch insists that the verb '* press on " is used very 
appropriately here with epi (unto), of the mark or object 
aimed at : it combines the notion of an impulse from 
without with that of eager and onward pressing haste. 
To De Wette, who says that perfection here signifies 
merely a fully developed line of teaching, Delitzsch 
replies, that " it refers to life as well as to knowledge ; 
to both word and action." Advanced doctrines are 
valuable only as they open the way for progress in 
holiness. Here perfection " refers especially to the 
fulness of spiritual knowledge manifesting itself in a 
Christian profession as the antithesis of babyhood," 
spoken of in Heb. v. 13. " Every one that partaketh 
of milk is without experience of the word of righteous- 
ness ; for he is a babe." This can be no other than 
the profession of Christian manhood, " a perfect man 
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ;" i.e., in which one receives the fulness of 
Christ, the completeness of what he has to impart, a 
state of grace in which Paul not only was, but one in 
which he confidently expected to continue. '' And I 



I 14 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

know that when I come unto you, I shall come in the 
fulness of the blessing of Christ." — Rom. xv. 29, R. V. 
Says Dr. Whedon, ''When Heb. vi. i is adduced as an 
exhortation to advancing to a perfected Christian char- 
acter, it is no misquotation. It is the noun form of the 
Greek adjective rendered full age in the chapter v. 14, 
and signifies adtdthood.'" 

I Pet. i. 13 is very inadequately translated in the A.V. ; 
Dean Alford and the R. V., margin, give the correct 
rendering : " Hope perfectly for the grace that is being 
brought unto you in the revelation of Jesus Christ." 
The word teleiose, " perfectly," is found in the New 
Testament only here. It is very rare in classic Greek. 
Hence the widely different versions of this word in 
this text; as, "to the end," "perfectly sober," and 
"hope perfectly." The last is the true rendering. 
Why did Peter employ this unusual phrase .'' Because 
there was none which could so fully express his idea of 
that complete deliverance from doubt which he experi- 
enced on the day of Pentecost, and which every be- 
liever may to-day experience who by faith receives a 
personal pentecost. He will henceforth hope without 
doubt or dejection, with full devotion of soul. So hope, 
that nothing more in the line of assurance can be de- 
sired. The grace which is the object of this perfect 
hope is being brought to us now, for the present tense 
is used. " There is," says Bengel, " but one revelation, 
which takes place through the whole time of the New 
Testament, by the two appearances of Christ." Thus, 
also, Luther, Steiger, and others. The bestowment of 
grace at the second advent is not according to the 
analogy of faith, and is foreign to the diction of Christ 



ST. PAUL MAGNIFIES THE MEANING OF PERFECTION. II 5 

and his apostles. They never hint any activity of grace 
when the Judge stands at the door. The Holy Spirit, 
the organ of God's grace, is never named in connection 
with the day of judgment. 2 Cor. xiii. g contains 
another once-written word, katai'tisis, " perfection ; " 
more exactly, "■ perfecting," as in the R. V. " Your 
complete furnishing, perfection in Christian morality." 
— Meyer. " Complete symmetry of Christian charac- 
ter." — Whedon. '' Perfection generally, in all good 
things." — ^Alford. This is the burden of Paul's 
prayer for the church-members in Corinth. Paul had 
too good sense to spend his breath in praying for what 
was impracticable in this life, and for what would come 
to them as a matter of course in the hour of death. 

Eph. iv. 12, "For the perfecting of the saints." 
Here is another once-used word, katartisntos, " perfec- 
tion." It has nearly the same meaning as the last word 
we have discussed, signifying, however, that perfection 
is an act rather than a process. 

Says Bishop Ellicott, "The nature of this definite 
perfecting is explained in verse 13," "Till we all attain 
unto the unity of the faith and of the perfect knowl- 
edge of the Son of God." — Dean Alford. Here are 
not two unities, but one ; faith merging into certain 
knowledge of Christ revealed to the spiritual percep- 
tion, as Paul testifies in Gal. i. 16, " When it pleased 
God to reveal his Son in me." The clear inward rev- 
elation of the Son of God is the first effect of entire 
sanctification, as distinct vision is a sequence of pur- 
ging the eye of its film. Perfect vision argues perfect 
purity. Ro7n. viii. 29 and Phil. Hi. 21 disclose the 
model on which our moral characters as well as our 



Il6 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

glorified bodies are to be fashioned, in a word not found 
anywhere else in Greek literature. This word is stim- 
morphos. There is no English equivalent. The word 
" copy " comes nearest to it. The Latin facsimile 
comes still nearer. 

We are each of us to be a kind of living, speaking, 
and working photograph of Jesus Christ. That we 
may be conformed to the image of the Son of God is 
the grand aim of all the acts of God in calling the sin- 
ner, in justifying and sanctifying the believer, and 
finally in glorifying him, soul and body, who perseveres 
in his loyalty to Christ. All whom the omniscient eye 
foresees as persevering believers has God predestinated 
to bear the image of his Son, that the Son of God by 
eternal generation may stand at last with the host of 
sons by the Spirit of adoption, '* a row of glorified 
brothers, with Jesus at the head." 

" How can it be, thou heavenly King, 
That thou shouldst us to glory bring? 
Make slaves the partners of thy throne, 
Decked with a never-fading crown? " 

C. Wesley. 

Rom. via. 17, In harmony with this inspiring and 
ennobling thought, St. Paul has used a word not found 
except in the Epistles. This is sungkloerono7nos, "joint- 
heir." A personal equality, based on equality of posses- 
sion, is thus designated. As all American citizens are 
equal in rights before the law, so all God's sons, includ- 
ing him who bears the unique title of Only Begotten, 
are equally entitled to the Father's regards. They are 
"joint-heirs with Christ" inthe/^^r/of sonship, though 
not in the degree of love. 



ST. PAUL MAGNIFIES THE MEANING OF PERFECTION. 11/ 

2 Tim. in. 17, Artios is in the New Testament a 
once-used word. It signifies perfect in qualification 
for service, rather than in internal virtues or attributes 
of character. *' That the man of God " — a Christian, 
not a professional title — '' may be complete, furnished 
completely to every good work " (^R. V.), by his ability 
to use the sword of the Spirit, the inspired Scriptures. 
Every believer should not only know the word of God 
for his own spiritual health and growth, but he should 
be skilled in its use for the salvation of others. There 
should always be two petitions in his prayers, — " Lord, 
bless me, and make me a blessing." 

The ordinary words for '' perfect " and " perfection," 
common to the Gospels and Epistles, I have omitted, 
because they are not " New Bottles." 



Il8 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXI. 

ST. PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF THE ANOINTING. 

Anointing in the holy Scriptures is either material, 
with oil, or spiritual, with the Holy Spirit. At his 
baptism Jesus was baptized with the Spirit, the first 
person in human history to receive this highest honor 
possible for men to receive or for Heaven to bestow. 
For in the Old Testament, anointing was the official 
inauguration into three of the highest offices of the 
Hebrew nation, — king and prophet (i Kings xix. i6), 
high priest (Lev. xvi. 32), and king (i Sam. ix. 16). 
These three offices were typical of a great personality 
to come in the latter days, called the Messiah, the 
Christ, or the Anointed One (Ps. ii. 2 ; Dan. ix. 25, 
26; Luke iv. 18). The nature of this anointing is 
foretold as spiritual : '' The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me ; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach 
good tidings to the meek." Jesus of Nazareth appro- 
priated this prophecy when he said, "This day is this 
Scripture fulfilled in your ears." This spiritual anoint- 
ing being one of his chief credentials, the fact is re- 
corded in John i. 32, 33 ; Acts iv. 27 ; x. 38. But the 
astonishing fact that this unique honor may be shared 
by all his true disciples, however humble and obscure, 
down through all the coming generations, was not 



ST. PAULS DOCTRINE OF THE ANOINTING. I I9 

clearly revealed in the Gospels. It was one of those 
truths which even his apostles were not able to under- 
stand till they had received the anointing itself on the 
day of Pentecost (2 Cor. i. 21). Says Paul to the Cor- 
inthians, " Now he which stablisheth us with you in 
Christ, and hath anointed us, is God." More exact is 
Meyer : '' He who makes us steadfast after he has 
anointed us." This shows the relation of this anoint- 
ing to the development and stability of the Christian 
character. To anoint the eyes with eye-salve is a fig- 
urative description of that instantaneous purging of 
the inward eye of the film of inbred sin, by the incom- 
ing of the Sanctifier, imparting the power of clear 
spiritual perfection (Rev. iii. 18). All that is said 
about the anointing as the privilege of all believers 
occurs very naturally after Pentecost. Hence the 
Greek chrisma is not found in the four Gospels ; and 
it occurs in the New Testament only three times, and 
all of them in the First Epistle of John : " But ye 
have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all 
things." — ii. 20. In my limitation of ''all things" to all 
spiritual truths, " necessary to life and godliness," I was 
once criticised by Gilbert Haven, editor of Zion s Her- 
ald. He said that my exclusion of philosophy and sci- 
ence from the ''all things" was a needless limitation, 
since Christianity is the tree on whose branches all 
kinds of knowledge are found in perfection. There is 
a large kernel of truth in the criticism of my translated 
friend. The most Christian nations are the most schol- 
arly, inventive, and progressive. Those who have the 
least of God's Spirit have the least intelligence. Many 
an individual, quickened by the Holy Ghost, has been 



120 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

aroused from mental stagnation to an inquiry after 
truth, which has led him through the whole range of 
biblical truth and its outbranchings into all the sciences 
and philosophies. The unction of the Holy Spirit is 
the highway to all knowledge. This is especially true 
of an insight into theology. Says that seraphic Scotch- 
man, Samuel Rutherford, " If you would be a deep 
divine, I recommend to you sanctification ; " i.e., the 
anointing. 

In connection with the word chrisma, St. John 
explains the origin of antichrist. All who have the 
chrism, or anointing, know and honor the Christ, the 
anointed. " As long,*' says Dr. Whedon, " as we pos- 
sess the holy chrism we will adhere to holy Christ.'' 
All who do not receive and retain the sanctifying 
chris7n reject or abandon the Christ, and become anti- 
christs, because of the absence of the enlightening 
chrism, (i Cor. xii. 3, R. K) '' No man speaking in the 
Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema; and no man 
can say Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit." The 
doctrine of the supreme divinity of Christ, revealed to 
the soul only by the anointing, protects all the other 
doctrines of the evangelical system. Hence the Holy 
Ghost is the only conservator of orthodoxy. The 
thumbscrew, as a substitute, is a stupendous failure, as 
is proven by the ghastly history of the Inquisition. 
The soft doctrines of liberalism creep into churches 
which do not honor the Third Person of the adorable 
Trinity, except with their lips, while their hearts are 
without his indwelling. Departures from him, whether 
new or old, are always departures from the evangelical 
standard. 



ST. PAULS DOCTRINE OF THE ANOINTING. 12 1 

I John ii. 27, " The anointing which ye receive of 
him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach 
you ; but as his anointing teacheth you concerning all 
things . , . abide ye in him " {R. V., marg.). Here 
chrisina of the Spirit is twice used with emphasis on 
his teaching office — of which we have already spoken 
— and his conditional abiding. He will abide in us 
so long as we heed the injunction, " Abide in him." 
When the Paraclete takes up his abode in the heart, he 
intends to stay forever, if the conditions are favorable. 
Neglect will obscure his brightness, weaving a veil of 
increasing thickness over his face ; and unrepented 
wilful sin will cause him to leave in grief, to return 
no more forever. " The sixth chapter to the Hebrews 
may affright us all," says Rutherford, " when we hear 
that men may take of the gifts and common graces of 
the Holy Spirit, and a taste of the powers of the world 
to come, to hell with them." There is no state of 
grace this side of glory from which the soul may not 
finally fall. Yet permanency is the peculiarity of the 
anointing in the case of the persevering believer. The 
presence of the Comforter in the sanctuary of the 
heart, filling it with light, love, and joy, strongly in- 
clines the person to persevere, so that he may freely 
determine to persist in faith and obedience. Of those 
who truly receive this anointing, in the fulness of its 
illumination, strength, and bliss, few ever realize its en- 
tire withdrawal. We teach no antinomian anointing 
when we say this. 

Another peculiar office of the chrisma is that of sole 
teacher of certain facts, which it alone can assuredly 
certify to the exclusion of all other instructors. What 



122 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

are these facts } Adoption into the family of God, and 
the remission of sins. These facts the anointing de- 
clares so authoritatively as to supersede the necessity 
of any other source of direct certitude. The anointing 
also creates the soul anew, and makes it conscious of 
newness of life. Sooner or later, according as the 
pupil of the Holy Spirit is diligent in scholarship, the 
anointing imparts the more abundant life, and perfects 
the enkindled love by exterminating lingering carnality 
through spiritual circumcision. Then the anointing 
Spirit shines on his own perfect work in the conscious- 
ness of him who now believes with the full assurance 
of faith. On many other questions he may wisely con- 
sult teachers and books, and above all the Book of 
books. Here he will find marks of the new birth, and 
tests of his purity by which the testimony of the anoint- 
ing may be confirmed. He will find directions how to 
walk in white through a world of pollution without de- 
filing his garments whiter than snow, washed in the 
blood of the Lamb. He will find the Bible an infallible 
directory to eternal life. He will find in it a highway 
along which all who are inspired with " the higher 
life" walk; on which no unclean foot ever passed, nor 
lions, nor ravenous beast, only the ransomed of the 
Lord returning to Zion with songs and everlasting joy 
upon their heads. 



ST. PAUL ARRANGES A BOUQUET OF GRACES. 1 23 



XXII. 

ST. PAUL ARRANGES A BOUQUET OF CHRISTIAN 
GRACES. 

Before the day of Pentecost the apostles had ex- 
perienced the new birth. Proof. First Negative. The 
absurdity of giving to unregenerate men the great com- 
mission to disciple all nations (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20), with 
the promise of Christ's gracious presence. If Christ, 
the Head of the church, sent forth unconverted men 
to convert the world, his church would be justified in 
following his example of knowingly ordaining unsaved 
ministers of the gospel. But our positive proof that 
the apostles were in a state of grace before the effusion 
of the Spirit is found in Christ's own declarations. "I 
am the vine, ye are the branches," " Now ye are clean 
through the word," ''They are not of the world, even 
as I am not of the world." Yet the pentecostal gift 
wrought a wonderful transformation in these men who 
had already been born again. The changes wrought in 
them required the application of terms not found in the 
four Gospels. Let us examine them. In Eph. iv. 32, is 
the adjective eusplanknos, "tender-hearted." In i Pet. 
iii. 8, it is rendered "pitiful." This virtue proud Rome 
despised, and treated its possessors with contempt. 
When in the Flavian Amphitheatre, or Colosseum, 



124 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

where gladiators were led into the arena to butcher 
one another on festive days, if anyone in that vast as- 
sembly of eighty thousand was seen to shed a tear, the 
police immediately arrested such an offender against 
good order and excluded him from the building. He 
manifested a weakness not in harmony with Roman 
iron-heartedness, which was called eiisplarihios, '' strong- 
bowelled," spirited, bold, undaunted. St. Paul and St. 
Peter use the same word ; but they read into it a sense 
entirely different — compassionate, tender-hearted. The 
heart of steel, which boasted of its ability to resist all 
appeals to the natural sensibilities, is still the same 
strong heart ; but it is strong to express the divine ten- 
derness which has been poured into it from above, as 
a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Hence the word used by 
profane writers to signify iron-heartedness is used after 
Pentecost to signify the sympathetic and pitiful heart. 
Therefore we may say that the fulness of the spirit has 
actually converted at least one Greek word from a heart 
of stone to a heart of flesh. This is an earnest of the 
transfiguration and glorification of all the languages of 
this Babel earth by the gospel of Christ in its universal 
triumph. 

There are three words for gentleness which are new 
bottles to hold the pentecostal wine. The first is chrae- 
stotaes, " benignity," kindness, and gentleness. The 
most noted instance of the use of this word is found in 
Col. in. 12, where the apostle makes a fragrant bouquet, 
by grouping together all the virtues which characterize 
a divine philanthropy. "■ Put on therefore, as the elect 
of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, 
humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbear- 



ST. PAUL ARRANGES A BOUQUET OF GRACES. 1 25 

ing, and forgiving, and above all these things put on 
love, which is the bond of perfectness." All these flow- 
ers have the smell of heaven upon them. The only 
soil on earth into which they can be successfully trans- 
planted are human souls cleansed and filled by the 
Holy Spirit. Genuine kindness is a divine attribute 
brought down from heaven by the Son of God. Then 
it was ''that the kindness and love — Gr Qok, philan- 
thropy — of God, our Saviour, toward man appeared." 
— Tit. Hi, 4. St. Paul is the only writer in the New Tes^ 
tament who uses aepios, ''gentle." This word etymo- 
logically indicates a gentleness that expresses itself in 
the form of affability, a kindness which has its value, 
despite the proverb that " kind words butter no pars- 
nips." In I Thess. ii. 7, St. Paul professes the gentle- 
ness of the softly-speaking nurse cherishing the children 
committed to her care. In 2 Tim. ii. 24, he insists on 
the necessity of this quality in every true "servant of 
the Lord." He "must be gentle unto all men, apt to 
teach, patient in meekness, instructing those that op- 
pose themselves." 

The last of the three post-pentecostal words for 
gentleness is epieikeia, "fairness," mildness, called by 
Matthew Arnold, " sweet reasonableness." It pertains 
more especially to exterior demeanor, to intercourse 
with others, while the grace of praotaes, "meekness," 
with which it is joined as descriptive of Christ in 2 
Cor. X. I, is rather an interior disposition and an abso- 
lute virtue. This relative excellence, so aptly described 
by Arnold, Christians are commanded in Phil. iv. 5 
to make known unto all men. The unfortunate word 
"moderation," found in the A. V., has been used as 



126 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

a couch of sloth by many when exhorted to strenuous 
Christian effort. We are glad that the R. V. has used 
the word '^ forbearance " instead of "moderation," thus 
removing this couch from beneath the spiritual slug- 
gard. 

In James Hi. 17, the wisdom that is from above is 
first pure, then radiant with all the lenient and gentle 
graces. These demonstrate to worldlings the heavenly 
origin of the evangel which we are commanded to 
preach to every creature by devout living as well as 
by persistent testimony. It is the absence of these 
fruits of the heavenly vine which obstructs the spread 
of the gospel at home and in pagan lands. The pagans 
have keen eyesight. They are studying the question 
whether Christianity is a mere ideal system, not 
adapted to men under the dominion of sin, or whether 
it is a practical scheme of deliverance from the guilt 
of sin, the love of sin, and the indwelling of sin ; in 
other words, whether the missionary is as good as his 
book. The great need of the world is not more pro- 
fessors of Christianity, but more Christ-like men and 
women. Professors may be multiplied on the plane 
of nature where the gospel has become fashionable. 
But Christ-like people are the creation of a supernat- 
ural agency, even the Holy Spirit in his personal in- 
working and abiding. That Christianity may attain its 
maximum power to transform men and elevate society, 
there must be a radical work wrought with nominal 
believers who not only do not shine themselves, but, 
what is worse, they obstruct rays which radiate from 
truly consecrated souls. It is not only true that one 
sinner destroyeth much good, but one dead church 



ST. PAUL ARRANGES A BOUQUET OF GRACES. 12/ 

member casts an eclipse on many souls who would 
otherwise see Christ, the Light of the World. 
■ In conclusion, we say that the surprising contrast 
between the teachings of the New Testament and that 
of the philosophers and moralists is in the importance 
it assigns to the milder virtues, and the discount it 
places on the heroic virtues, reversing the order of 
their importance. The work of the Holy Spirit in the 
fulness of his incoming and abiding in the believer is 
conspicuous in the development of those virtues which 
proud philosophy despised, although their universal 
diffusion would increase the happiness of mankind 
greatly. 



125 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXIII. 

ST. PAUL SHOWS THE CERTAINTY OF SPIRITUAL 
KNOWLEDGE. 

We close this extended series of readings by show- 
ing the effect of the outpouring of the Spirit in quick- 
ening the spiritual perceptions and giving a certitude 
of God and of spiritual realities. We will limit our 
Reading to the study of only two compound words em- 
ployed by the apostles after the day of Pentecost to 
express the fulness, clearness, exactness, and certainty 
of their spiritual knowledge. 

Heb. X. 22. The first word is plaerophoria, ''most cer- 
tain confidence." ''Let us draw near with a true heart, 
in full assurance of faith." The key to the meaning of 
this noun is found in the use of its cognate verb in 
2 Tim. iv. 5. " Make full proof of thy ministry;" and 
in 2 Thn. iv. 17. "That the preaching by me might 
be fully known." The verb here used was used by 
Justin, the martyr, when examined by the prefect Rus- 
ticus. Said the prefect, "Do you suppose that you 
will ascend up to heaven to receive some recompense 
there .^" — " I do not suppose," was the martyr's ready 
correction, "but I know and am perfectly assured." 
This means that the fulness of the Spirit enables us to 
come to God without any hesitancy, disbelief, or diffi- 



ST. PAUL S CERTAINTY OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. I 29 

dence as to our right and fitness through the blood of 
Christ to draw nigh to the Holy of Holies, the place 
of God's presence. This right is far higher than that 
of the Israelite when sprinkled with the blood of the 
first covenant at the base of Mt. Sinai. For the true 
believer in Christ has a superior qualification, being pro- 
vided with holiness inwrought by the Holy Spirit, to 
enter into the sanctuary, or Holy place, where God 
dwells. For all believers are priests, and have the 
priestly prerogative of access to God, not granted to 
the Hebrew laity. 

Heb. vi. II, ''But we earnestly desire that every one 
of you do show the same diligence with regard to the 
full assurance of hope unto the end." This teaches us 
that converted Hebrews had a full conviction and a 
joyous assurance, which they are exhorted to keep un- 
shaken to the end of their Christian course. On this 
text Wesley bases his doctrine that to some at least is 
granted the highest degree of divine evidence of perse- 
vering grace, and of eternal glory. See his notes. J. 
Fletcher concurs. See his, '' Checks," vol. ii., p. 659, 
note. 

This idea harmonizes more perfectly with Calvinism 
than with Arminianism. For this reason Methodists 
have generally abstained from preaching a state of 
grace not attainable by all, but bestowed on a few 
favored ones — the assurance of eternal salvation. 

Col. ii. 2. That the gospel abundantly satisfies the 
demands of reason and the intellect is shown where 
"the full assurance of understanding" is spoken of, 
beautifully expressed by Meyer as " the lofty blessing 
of full certainty of Christian insight," the whole riches 



130 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

of which may be attained by all believers in Christ who 
claim their heritage by faith. The cumulative fulness 
of spiritual certitude described in this verse is surprising 
indeed, as we shall very soon see. This full assurance 
of the intellect is grounded on the testimony of the 
Spirit. 

This word is found also in i TJiess. i. 5. ''Much 
assurance." This is interpreted as expressive of the 
assured persuasion on the part of the preachers who 
had proclaimed the gospel in power and in the Holy 
Ghost. They did not preach with an interrogation 
point at the end of every utterance, as if in doubt 
themselves. 

Much is said in the New Testament, especially after 
the day of Pentecost, about knowing God, and our 
adoption into his family, and the indwelling of his 
Spirit, and the certainty of spiritual realities. The or- 
dinary word for knowledge in classic Greek is gnosis. 
But Paul added an intensive prefix to it, changing it to 
epignosis, giving it a stronger meaning. Peter in three 
instances follows Paul's example. Hence this Bible 
reading is constructed upon the word epignosis found 
in the Greek Testament, inadequately translated in 
most of the versions, though I have a version by Dean 
Alford which has it accurately translated, which version 
will be used in a part of this Bible Reading. The sub- 
ject is the Christian's privilege to know God without a 
peradventure or a doubt, to be certain of the forgive- 
ness of sins, and of the indwelling of the divine Com- 
forter and Sanctifier. The object of the lesson is to 
show that God has laid down no foundations for doubt, 
or for uncertainty, in this important matter. For it 



ST. PAUL S CERTAINTY OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. I3I 

is a matter of transcendent interest to every human 
being. To know God is eternal life ; and some are 
without the knowledge of God. I speak this, says the 
apostle, to your shame. 

I am to discuss the question of how far we may 
know God in this life. There is no dispute among 
Christians that we have a revealed knowledge of God 
in his word ; but this does not satisfy, because it is in- 
direct and roundabout. It is designed to be a stepping- 
stone to a better kind of knowledge. It is a knowledge 
through testimony, the testimony of others coming 
down to us through the centuries that are past ; the 
latest testimony given is eighteen hundred years old. 
We want a more certain knowledge than that. We 
want a direct knowledge. Men wish to have a knowl- 
edge of God at first hand if it is a possible thing. 
Hence the philosophers have sought after this direct 
knowledge of God, and they have not succeeded very 
well. They are called theosophists. They have sought 
through physical operations, through magic, and some 
of them have thought they could find God at the bot- 
tom of their crucibles, in the laboratory of the chemist. 
We have even the German fire philosophers, who 
labored very hard to find God by chemical processes. 
A great many, especially in India, thought they found 
God by intense thought, going away by themselves and 
sitting down and thinking, and thinking, and thinking 
upon one subject. And some of them say they have 
had a mental illumination which has enabled them to 
grasp God as an object of direct knowledge. These 
are called the philosophical theosophists. 

I sympathize with this desire to have a direct knowl- 



132 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

edge of God, clear and satisfacfory, the knowledge of 
God in spiritual realities ; but I abhor what is called 
theosophy, because it ignors the revealed knowledge of 
God, and does not seek God through his word. It seeks 
him through other agencies such as I have just de- 
scribed. The great difficulty with these people is that 
they apply the wrong organ to spiritual knowledge. 
They apply the intellect, the head instead of the heart. 
It is very much like applying the ear to the rainbow in 
order to perceive its beauties, and the eye to an oratorio 
in order to delight in its music. We know God through 
love. St. John tells us that. He that loveth not 
knoweth not God. I may have the intellect of an 
archangel, but if I do not love I will not know God. 
That is the difficulty with theosophy. 

Its second great difficulty is that it knows nothing of 
the Holy Spirit. God reveals himself to us through 
his Son Jesus Christ, but he communicates himself to 
us through the Holy Spirit. This is the beautiful 
relation of the three persons in the Trinity, — God the 
Father, revealing himself to the world, to our intelli- 
gence, to our faith, rather our intelligent and reason- 
able faith, in his Son Jesus Christ, but giving a direct 
and experimental knowledge of himself by communicat- 
ing himself to our spiritual intuitions through the per- 
son of the Holy Ghost. 

After the Holy Ghost was given, a word comes 
into the Greek Testament which is not found in the 
four Gospels, a strengthened form of the word knowl- 
edge, epignosis, meaning exact, clear, full, perfect, 
satisfactory knowledge ; of course not exhaustive 
knowledge of God and of spiritual things. All these 



ST. Paul's certainty of spiRixuAr. knowledge. 133 

adjectives are used by the various great scholars of the 
age now living, and some who have passed away, — by 
Meyer, Bishops Lightfoot, Ellicott, and Westcott, and 
Dean Alford, and many others. 

Now let me read a few passages in which this word 
occurs, and you will see how much it adds to the 
strength of the New Testament. Perhaps the ques- 
tion may arise in your mind why the revisers did not 
translate this strengthened word for knowledge, by the 
use of the adjectives which I have given. The revisers 
of the New Testament were far more conservative than 
the revisers of the Old Testament in some particulars, 
and they hesitated to put in two words instead of one. 
They hesitated to put in the adjectives which I have 
indicated — fidl, clear, perfect, exact, certain; though 
some of those very men in their commentaries do thus 
translate it. 

The first passage is Rom. i. 28, "And even as they 
did not like to retain God in their knowledge [full 
knowledge, clear knowledge, certain knowledge], God 
gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things 
which are not convenient " or becoming. If you will 
read that first chapter of Romans, you will be struck 
with the fact that in several places it is said God gave 
people over to certain things, and those things were 
the things which they liked, and God gave them over 
because they did not like a full and clear knowledge of 
Him. He gave them over to some very unworthy and 
base things. So that they exchanged monotheism, or 
the knowledge of the one God, for images of four- 
footed beasts, and birds, and creeping things, and be- 
gan to worship them. 



134 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

In Rom. Hi. 20 the word occurs again. "Therefore 
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justi- 
fied in his sight, for by the law is the full knowledge 
of sin." 

Men may have a knowledge of sin without the 
written law. The pagans all over the world have a 
knowledge of sin, a somewhat indefinite knowledge ; 
but when God's law is preached to them, they begin to 
have a knowledge of sin that puts them under condem- 
nation, weighty condemnation, and they begin to cry 
out after the mercy of God. So the adjective *'full " 
brings out that fact — that the law or revelation is re- 
quisite to the full knowledge of sin, as well as the full 
knowledge of God. Bishop Taylor in his preaching 
says that first he broadswords his congregation with the 
law — cuts them down, cuts their hearts through and 
through with the law. In his great tour through South- 
ern Africa, made in 1867, among the Kaffirs, he gener- 
ally preached two days in each place ; and the first 
day he preached on the Ten Commandments, and the 
second day he preached on the day of Pentecost, and 
the outpouring of the Spirit. The Kaffirs were con- 
verted a hundred in a day, seven thousand in all. 

Rom. X. 2, " For I bear them record that they have 
a zeal of God, but not according to exact and certain 
knowledge." 

The Jews had some knowledge of God ; but they did 
not have a full knowledge of him, because they did not 
recognize his Son through whom he reveals himself to 
men. Hence he says, " I bear them record that they 
have a zeal of God, but not according to definite knowl- 
edge." A zeal to know God, and to serve him, very im- 



ST. Paul's certainty of spiritual knowledge. 135 

perfectly and very fanatically, because they rejected 
the grand organ of divine revelation, which is the 
divine Logos, the eternal Son. 

Now turn to Col. i. 9, 10, "For this cause we also, 
since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, 
and to desire that you might be filled with the perfect 
knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual under- 
standing." 

Mark the strength of the expression. Filled with 
knowledge, filled with a thorough knowledge of God's 
will. That shows us the path of duty pretty clearly. 
It pours the light upon us. A thorough knowledge of 
God's will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 
or spiritual sagacity, spiritual sharp-sightedness. 

Phil. i. 9, ''And. this I pray, that your love may 
abound yet more and more in knowledge." 

That is, in full knowledge. The strengthened word 
is used here. And in all judgment, all perceptivity. 

Just mark the strength of these terms here for knowl- 
edge, both of them. Abound yet more and more iji 
knozvledge and in all perceptivity. It is a very strong 
expression. I call your attention to the fact that this 
9th verse justifies me in saying that love is the organ 
of knowledge, the knowledge of God. "And this I 
pray, that your love may abound yet more and more." 
Love is the sphere in which knowledge, full, clear, 
satisfactory, experimental knowledge, dwells. 

Heb. X. 26. This throws light upon a very perplex- 
ing question, " For if we sin wilfully after that we have 
received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth 
no more sacrifice for sins." 

A man wrote me the other day, an eminent preacher. 



136 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

wanting that passage explained to him. There is used 
here the strengthened form of the word knowledge. If 
we sin wilfully after that we have received a clear, full, 
undoubted, thorough, satisfactory, and experimental 
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sac- 
rifice for sins. What does he mean .^^ He is writing to 
the Hebrews. If a converted Hebrew backslid, where 
did he backslide to ? He slipped back into Judaism. 
If a Jew had been converted and brought into the full, 
experimental knowledge of the truth, and then had de- 
liberately gone away from Christ and rested again in 
Judaism, of course he rejects not only Christ, but the 
whole system of truth of which he is the centre. He 
can find no salvation now in Judaism. There is no 
salvation there for him. I do not say that every Jew 
is going to be lost. Many pious Jews may be saved on 
the same ground that the pious pagans may be saved, if 
they have the spirit of faith and the purpose of right- 
eousness. They may never have seen a New Testa- 
ment ; they may have been brought up under such 
circumstances that the light of Christian truth has not 
had any chance to shine in their minds, and they can 
be saved on the same basis that the pious pagan or the 
pious Mohammedan may be. What do I mean by the 
spirit of faith .-^ The disposition to grasp the object of 
faith were it presented. What do I mean by the pur- 
pose of righteousness ? The disposition to walk by the 
rule of the divine requirements, the Ten Command- 
ments, if that rule were made known. 

Now we will read this passage again, calling atten- 
tion to the fact that the word " sin " in the present tense 
denoting continuousness here signifies not a single act 



ST. PAUL S CERTAINTY OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. I 37 

of sin, but a course of sin. If a Christian Jew enter 
upon a career of sin, a continuous course of sin, wil- 
fully, after he has received the full experimental 
knowledge of the truth of God's salvation, and then 
deliberately turn away from it, and go back to Judaism, 
he would find in Judaism no sacrifice adequate to meet 
his case. If he should repent and come back, there 
is still virtue in the all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus 
Christ to save him. That is my understanding of this 
difficult passage. 

2 Peter ii. 20. This is in the same line. " For if 
after they have escaped the pollutions of the world 
through the full knowledge of the Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and 
overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the 
beginning. For it had been better for them not to 
have ftdly known [here is the strengthened verb] the 
way of righteousness, than, after they have perfectly 
known it, to turn from the holy commandment de- 
livered unto them." 

2 Tim. ii. 25, '* In meekness instructing those that 
oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them 
repentance to the full or ce7iai7i knowledge of the 
truth." 

The word "acknowledging" in the King James Ver- 
sion is the word which I am speaking of, the word for 
full knowledsre. 

2 Peter i. 1-3, " Simon Peter, a servant and an 
apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained 
like precious faith with us, through the righteousness 
of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ : Grace and peace 
be multiplied unto you through the certain knowledge 



138 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

of God, and of Jesus Christ our Lord ; according as 
his divine power hath given unto us all things that 
pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge 
of him that hath called us to glory and virtue." 

Huxley, the great scientist, in the year 1869 in- 
vented a new term, agnosticism, which was caught up 
by all the people that did not know God and his sal- 
vation, and were filled with doubt upon the subject, 
and were running into various forms of scepticism 
and materialism, and they all of them began to apply 
that word to themselves, and began to boast that 
they were agnostics. We can find many people here, 
in the Athens of America, who are saying, with mani- 
fest pride, "I am an agnostic, I am an agnostic." 
What does an agnostic mean } It means an ignora- 
mus. That is the exact meaning of the word. How 
do they use it } They use it to mean that they do 
not know whether God exists, and they do not know 
that he does not exist. They do not wish to be called 
atheists. So they take this position : Is there a God } 
I do not know. Is atheism true } I do not know. 
Is there a hereafter after death } I do not know ; 
there is not sufficient proof. God is so great and 
infinite, the human mind is so narrow and finite, that 
it cannot have a knowledge of God. Then they say 
that God is unknown, and therefore he is unknowable. 
We have no faculties by which we may know him, 
because the finite cannot grasp, cannot comprehend, 
infinite. That is the great trouble that intellectual 
men are in now. They cannot find out that there is 
a God and be certain about it. Let them come for- 
ward for prayers. Let them repent of their sins. Let 



ST. PAUL S CERTAINTY OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. I 39 

them cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Let 
them keep that up a few hours, and they will begin 
to find out that there is a God. And if they keep 
it up a few hours more they will find out that he is 
a pardoning God. If they come in the name of his 
Son, Jesus Christ, turning away from their sins, their 
pride, abandoning every other hope and every other 
plea, casting themselves upon the broad merit of the 
atoning death of Jesus Christ, they will find the par- 
don of their sins. And if they keep on and plead 
the promises made with respect to the day of Pente- 
cost, they will find a personal pentecost, the fulness 
of the Holy Ghost, God imported by the Holy Ghost 
into the very centre of their beings. 

That is the great trouble with the agnostics. They 
are applying the wrong organ to the question of spirit- 
ual knowledge. Let them come and seek God with the 
heart, believing in his Son, and they will soon find their 
feet standing upon the everlasting rock of certainty. 
Gladstone says, ''Although I cannot embrace the 
mountain with my arms, I can touch it with my hand. 
Knowledge may be positive, though it is not exhaus- 
tive." 

In Titus i. i, the same word occurs. The strength- 
ened Greek word occurs in all these passages. " Paul, 
a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, ac- 
cording to the faith of God's elect, and the certain 
knowledge of the truth which is after godliness." The 
short epistle of Philemon has the same word in it in 
the sixth verse. "That the communication of thy faith 
may become effectual by the full knowledge of every 
good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus." 



140 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

You do not know, what good things are in you until 
you receive this knowledge by the Holy Spirit, reveal- 
ing himself, revealing God to you ; translated in our 
version, by the word " acknowledging." We do not 
know ourselves, our real worth, till we know God by 
a heart experience. 

I suggested that there was one writer that dared to 
translate these passages aright. Dean Alford, in his 
commentary, calls attention to the fact in all these 
cases. In his version he puts in the adjective in many 
of the passages, some of which I am now about to 
quote. 

B/>/l i. 17, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
the Father of glory, would give unto you the Spirit of 
wisdom and revelation in full knowledge of him." 

I call your attention to these because some of you 
might imagine that I am developing this Bible Reading 
out of my own imagination. Dean Alford was one of 
the most eminent men of England, a divine in the 
Church of England, who spent his life on the Greek 
Testament. In his notes he is very emphatic upon 
rendering this term by some such adjective as this. 

God has laid down no foundations for doubt ; he does 
not want people to walk in the mist, not knowing 
whither they go. If you will have faith in the Lord 
Jesus you will be brought out into a large sphere of 
knowledge. Dean Alford, I believe, enjoyed what 
he himself insisted upon in his commentary. I was 
touched the other day in reading in the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica a little account of him, where it gives what 
is written upon his tombstone, "The lodge of a pilgrim 
on his way to the New Jerusalem." He knew God and 



ST. PAUL S CERTAINTY OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. I4I 

he had a sense of the reality of spiritual things. He 
knew that there is a new Jerusalem to which he would 
come. 

Eph. iv. 13, "Till we all attain unto the unity of 
the faith, and of the perfect knowledge of the Son 
of God, unto the full grown man, unto the measure of 
the stature of the fulness of Christ." — Alford. 

This remarkable text was made for such a discus- 
sion as this. Christ has gone up on high. He has 
sent down or called into activity various orders of 
ministers, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and 
teachers, "for the perfecting of the saints, unto the 
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of 
Christ till we all come " — this is the final and grand 
aim of the whole — " till we all come in the unity of 
the faith and of the perfect knowledge of the Son of 
God." Not two unities, but one. Every version and 
every manuscript of the Greek, except the last critical 
ones issued from Cambridge, have a comma here in 
the wrong place, a comma after faith. What is the 
unity } It is faith becoming knowledge, faith merging 
into knowledge, faith ending in knowledge, the oneness 
of faith and knowledge. Till we all come in the unity 
of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. All 
true faith ends in knowledge, and the knowledge is per- 
fect knowledge, according to Dean Alford's translation. 
Not exhaustive knowledge, but experimental, and hence, 
perfect knowledge, in the sense that it excludes doubt. 
Agnostics say no man can know God because God is 
so large ; no man can know him because the finite 
cannot fathom or grasp, or reach clear round the in- 
finite. Bless your dear soul, must a knowledge be 



142 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

perfectly exhaustive in order to be positive .? Do you 
know the Atlantic Ocean ? You have seen a part of 
it, have you not ? but you have not gone from bot- 
tom to top, from the North Pole to the South Pole ; 
you have not been upon every single yard or square 
foot of it. But you are positive that you know it. 
A knowledge of a fact does not depend upon our 
having an exhaustive analysis of it. We may have a 
certain satisfactory and positive knowledge without 
having an exhaustive knowledge. Till we all come in 
the unity of the faith and of the perfect knowledge 
of the Son of God. And that we cannot fathom. 
No man knoweth the Son but the Father. This is 
one of the grand proof-texts of his divinity. No man 
has a sounding-line long enough to fathom the Son 
of God but the Father. Nevertheless, we may have 
certain knowledge of him and be perfectly sure that 
we know him and are united with him. We may be 
positive and certain of it without a doubt, because 
the Son of God reveals the Father to us who believe. 

Col. Hi. 10, "And have put on the new man, which 
is being renewed unto perfect knowledge after the 
image of him that created him." — Alford. 

That shows a work of grace after the new birth. 
Have put on the new man, which is renewed, being 
renewed, in perfect knowledge, after the image of him 
that created him. 

Col. a. 2, " That their hearts may be confirmed, they 
being knit together in love, and unto all the riches of 
the full assurance of understanding, unto the thorough 
knowledge of the mystery of God." — Alford. 

Most of the manuscripts put in as an explanation of 



ST. PAUL S CERTAINTY OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. I43 

what the mystery of God is — Christ even Christ. 
Thus is it in the revised New Testament. The King 
James version reads, " Of God, and of the Father, and of 
Christ." But I call your attention here to the cumula- 
tion of phrases, as if Saint Paul had strained the Greek 
language so we could almost hear it snap, to pile up 
phrases strong enough to express his own conception 
of the clearness of the knowledge which we may have 
of Jesus Christ. " Unto all riches ! " When anything 
is superlatively excellent, St. Paul always brings out 
this word " riches ; " riches of grace, riches of assur- 
ance, riches of knowledge, and so on. Unto all riches ! 
Not some riches, " All riches of the full assurance of 
understanding !" God provides for men's intellects as 
well as for their hearts. To the perfect or thorough 
knowledge of the mystery of God, which is Christ. 

I Tim. a. 4, " Who willeth all men to be saved, 
and to come unto the certain knowledge of the 
truth." — Alford. 

Yes, that is God's wish, not his decree. He wishes 
all men to be saved, and to come to the certain knowl- 
edge of the truth. Hear this, ye who walk in darkness. 
You are not walking according to God's will. Mr. 
Spurgeon one day in his sermon spoke of having had 
a great conflict with doubts. The deacons took him 
aside and asked him why he did not confess that he had 
been stealing horses, or stealing sheep, or something 
of that kind. They said it was just as bad to doubt 
God as it was to violate his law. And Mr, Spurgeon 
said that he stood reproved. He never would again 
doubt God, or confess his doubts of God. The deacons 
were right. It is not God's will that we should walk in 
doubt, but in the certain knowledge of truth. 



144 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

2 Ti7n. Hi. 7, " Ever learning and never able to come 
to the FULL knowledge of the truth." ■ — ^ Alford. 

Did you ever see any such persons } Our churches 
are full of them. The purpose of this Bible Reading 
is, if there are any readers of this class, that they may 
be shamed out of their living in this wretched state. 
Take God at his word i Put his promises to the test, 
and see if you do not mount up above the mist to a 
place where the sun shines day and night all the year 
round ! 

2 Peter i. 8, " For these things being in you, and 
multiplying, render you not idle nor yet unfruitful 
towards the perfect knowledge of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." — Alford. 

The things spoken of here is the list of Christian 
virtues, beginning with faith. " Giving all diligence, 
add to your faith, virtue [or courage] ; and to virtue, 
knowledge ; and to knowledge, temperance [or self-con- 
trol] ; and to temperance, patience ; and to patience, 
godliness ; and to godliness, brotherly kindness ; and to 
brotherly kindness, love. For if these things be in 
you and abound, they will make you that ye shall 
neither be barren nor unfruitful in the perfect knowl- 
edge of our Lord Jesus Christ.'" 

Now, do not say that all this perfect knowledge is 
going to be after you are dead ! A great many people 
are putting every good thing beyond the river of death, 
and living on starvation rations here. Just take the 
promises of God, and enjoy them this side of the river. 
This is the divine purpose. There is a very great com- 
fort and very great strength in it. 

At the suggestion of Joseph Cook and Dr. McCosh 



ST. PAUL S CERTAINTY OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. I45 

the word merognostic, knowing in part (i Cor. xiii. 12), 
has been invented and put into the, so-called " Standard 
Dictionary." Whether this new word will become 
current in the English language we are not certain. 
It may be convenient to express our narrow view of 
God's providences and our limited intellectual concep- 
tions of his nature and works. It is certain that Paul 
did not need it to express his experimental knowledge 
of God in Christ, his personal Saviour and Lord. As 
regard^ the assurance of Christian truth, Paul was 
neither 2^ gnostic, implying a conceit of spiritual knowl- 
edge ; nor an agnostic , professing ignorance of revealed 
truth ; nor a merognostic, having only doubtful glimpses 
of divine verities ; but he was an cpignosticy rejoicing in 
perfect assurance of spiritual realities. This last word, 
invented by the author of this book, has as yet no 
standing in reputable English, but it is easily derived 
from epignosis, and is quite intelligible to the Greek 
scholar, indicating one who knows God in Christ 
beyond a doubt. Although the term may not be in 
the dictionary, the reality is in the heart of every one 
who claims his full Christian heritage. Thus endeth 
this reading of the Scriptures. May it be to God's 
children, wandering in the dark forests of spiritual 
uncertitude, a blazed path out into the sunny clearing 
where they can see the open gates of the celestial city. 



4-6 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXIV. 

SOME OF THE DIFFERENT iMEANINGS OF THE 
WORD " FLESH." ^ 

It is quite a remarkable fact that none of the words 
of Christ have been perverted into proof-texts in sup- 
port of sin in the heart of the believer. The only 
exception is the twist given by the Plymouth Brethren 
school of teachers to John iii. 6 : " That which is born 
of the flesh is flesh." They interpret the Greek per- 
fect tense " has been born " as implying that the flesh 
remains unchanged till physical death. Hence they in- 
fer that the sin-principle must inhere in the believer so 
long as he dwells in a house of clay. Their fallacy lies 
in transferring to the Gospels the Pauline use of the 
term sanr, "flesh," as a synonym for sin. It is never 
so used in the four Gospels. Cramer, in his Biblico- 
Theological Lexicon, arranges the meanings of this 
word under six classes. In the first five there is no 
hint of sin. The sixth definition embraces the peculiar 
Pauline signification : " T/ie sinful conditio7i of Jmman 
naUire in and according to its bodily manifestationr 
Then follows an exhaustive list of quotations, filling 
more than one quarto page, all taken from the epistles, 
chiefly from those of St. Paul. There is not one taken 
from the four Gospels, which are abundantly quoted 



DIFFERENT MEANINGS OF THE WORD " FLESH." I47 

under the five shades of meaning which do not imply 
sin. He classifies JoJin Hi. 6 under his third defini- 
tion : " That wJiicJi mediates afid brings about mans 
connection with nature^ In this text, "That which 
is born of the flesh is flesh," the term flesh " means 
the whole of human nature apart from the life-giving 
Spirit. This can but produce flesh." — Alex. Mc- 
Laren. Says Pres. Timothy Dwight, " The flesh is 
to be understood here in the physical, not in the moral, 
sense." 

Meyer insists that the Pauline view should not be 
"attributed to John, because it is strange to him," 
With Weiss and Julius Miiller, we understand Jesus 
to say that the new birth has for its sphere the imma- 
terial part of human nature, " as the corporeal birth 
only produces the corporeal, sensual part." Hence- 
forth the regenerate is free from the dominion of the 
animal nature ; and if he claims the full heritage of 
the believer, he is entirely filled with the Holy Spirit, 
the Sanctifier, and walks in the newness of the Holy 
Spirit as the efficient principle of the Christian Life. 

Turning now to the apostolic epistles, we find in 
I John i. 8, a text which every doctrinal opposer of 
entire sanctification as a present possible experience 
hurls with an air of triumph against its advocates, as 
deceiving themselves and not having the truth in them. 
Just what St. John means will be seen when we find 
what great errors he is writing against. He lived long 
enough to see the germs of so-called gnosticism spring- 
ing up to corrupt the church. Their basal error was 
dualism, two eternal, uncreated principles in conflict, 
good and evil, the latter making its abode in matter, 



I4o HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

and identifying itself therewith in such a way as to be 
inexpungable by God himself. One branch of the 
gnostics taught that spirit is perfectly free from sin, 
and cannot be tainted or soiled by it, since sin is 
limited to the sphere of matter, and there is no bridge 
nor pontoon from one to the other. Hence the human 
spirit is sinless, though its material envelope may be 
foul with lust, debauchery, gluttony, and drunkenness. 
The favorite simile of the gnostics was, the sinless soul 
in a polluted body is like a golden jewel in a pigsty, 
encompassed by filth, yet without mixture with it. He 
who embraced this philosophy had no need of the 
blood of Christ as the ground of the forgiveness of sin, 
because his spirit, his real personality, had no sin to 
be forgiven, no pollution to be cleansed. This is 
exactly what St. John means when he says, i John i. 
8, " If we " — i.e., any gnostic — " say we have no sin," 
needing the atonement, "we deceive ourselves, and 
the truth is not in us." But if any one abandons his 
false philosophy, confesses his sin, and makes a clean 
breast by his full acknowledgment and genuine re- 
pentance, " He is faithful and just to forgive us our 
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This 
exegesis is in perfect harmony with the announced 
purpose of the epistle, ii. i, ''That ye sin not." It 
avoids making John fiatly contradict himself when he 
says (iii. 9), " Whosoever is born of God doth not 
commit sin." Above all, it avoids the absurdity of 
recommending a medicine as a perfect cure, and in the 
same breath branding every testimony to such a cure 
through its use as a piece of self-deception, or an 
unmitigated lie. John advertises the blood of Christ 



DIFFERENT MEANINGS OF THE WORD ^' FLESH. I49 

as the perfect antidote for all unrighteousness. Is he 
now so illogical and demented as to denounce as un- 
trustworthy every one who declares himself healed 
through the application of this antidote ? Is this the 
way to interpret a writer of ordinary common-sense ? 
Does such an exegesis honor the Spirit of inspiration 
by which John wrote? Let him answer who perverts 
this text into a divine negation of holiness of heart 
and life in this world. In this very epistle St. John 
writes : " For this purpose the Son of God was man- 
ifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." 
What are these works of the devil but human hearts 
defiled by sin through the wiles of Satan ? Who are 
more evidently protecting the works of the devil than 
they who deny the power of the Son of God to accom- 
plish the purpose of his mission, and decry the wit- 
nesses to his perfect saving grace ? 

We have seen writings in which J^a^/ies iv. 5 is quoted 
in proof of the impossibility of living without sin. Let 
us examine this text. The R. V. hints that there is a 
different reading in the Greek. Instead of " dwell," it 
has the causative " made to dwell." There are two 
marginal readings, from which we are quite sure of the 
meaning. The fourth verse, in Old Testament style, 
stigmatizes the apostasy of the righteous as spiritual 
adultery, the divine covenant being viewed as the mar- 
riage of God's people to himself: "Ye adulteresses, 
know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity 
with God.-^" To preserve Christians from this world- 
ward tendency, which is spiritual adultery, God has 
caused his Spirit to abide within them, to watch over 
their fidelity, most jealously desiring our undivided love 



150 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

for the heavenly Bridegroom. This exegesis of the 
fifth verse brings it into beautiful harmony with the 
fourth, by carrying out the figure of spiritual wedlock 
by the appointment of the indwelling Spirit as its guar- 
dian, to keep believers faithful to their marriage vow. 
There is no reference to the human spirit in this verse ; 
much less is there permission for envy to dwell therein. 
It is the Holy Spirit jealously desiring our perfect love 
to God. 

I Pet. V. 10. It is alleged that St. Peter in this text 
intimates that this perfect heart loyalty to God cannot 
exist here and now, but only ''after ye have suffered- a 
while." Our answer shall be a quotation from Dean 
Alford's notes: "'His eternal glory in Christ Jesus' 
belongs to 'hath called;' and 'when ye have suffered a 
while' belongs to the same words, 'hath called,' not to 
what follows, as is decisively shown by the consideration 
that all four verbs — perfect, stablish, strengthen, and 
settle — must belong to acts of God on them in this life^ 
while these sufferings would be still going on." Our 
paraphrase conveys the exact meaning, "May the God 
of all grace, who hath called you unto his eternal glory 
in Christ [not now, but], after ye have suffered a little 
while, himself [now, immediately] perfect, stablish, 
strengthen, and settle you [without waiting to do or to 
suffer more]." 



OLD TESTAMENT STUMBLING-BLOCKS REMOVED. I5I 



XXV. 

OLD TESTAMENT STUMBLING-BLOCKS REMOVED. 

There are several misunderstood passages in the 
Holy Scriptures which seem to justify an unholy life; 
texts which apparently teach that sin is necessary to 
the present state, and Christian perfection, or deliver- 
ance from inbred sin through the Holy Ghost shedding 
abroad the love of God in its fulness in the heart, is a 
chimera. It is the object of this chapter to show that 
no word of the Holy Scriptures, properly interpreted, 
upholds, or in the least extenuates, sin as an act, or as 
a state or tendency. 

I Kings via. 46. In his prayer at the dedication of 
the Temple, Solomon represents various future national 
exigencies for which he implores the intervention of Je- 
hovah bringing deliverance. Among these is national 
sin fohowed by national captivity. " If they sin against 
thee (for there is no man that sinneth not), and thou be 
angry with them," etc. Here the stumbling-block is in 
the parenthesis, which seems to declare, with the West- 
minster Catechism, that every man, after all that grace 
can do for him, is continually sinning. If this is man's 
normal condition, there is no pertinency in the supposi- 
tion, '' If they sin." It is very much like the governor 
of Massachusetts at the laying of a corner-stone of an 



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insane asylum, being reported as saying in the dedi- 
catory address, " If any citizen of this commonwealth 
becomes crazy, and there is no citizen who is not crazy, 
let him come here and be cured of his mental maladies." 
All the readers would say that there is a contradiction 
in the speech, through the blunder of the reporter or 
the printer ; and they would immediately correct the 
parenthetic clause, and make it read thus : '' For there 
is no citizen who may not be crazy." Now, an exami- 
nation of this text in the original Hebrew develops the 
fact that the word for "sinneth" is in the future tense, 
the only form in the Hebrew for expressing the po- 
tential mood. (See Nordheimer's Grammar, § 993, 
Green, § 263, Rodiger's Gesenius, p. 238, d.) The cor- 
rected rendering then would be, " For there is no man 
who 7nay not sin;" i.e., there is none impeccable, 
none that is not liable to transgression. Thus the 
alleged criminal imperfection is not a declared fact, in 
any sense whatever, but only a declared possibility. 
The text properly translated gives no support to 
the doctrine of the necessity of sin in a believer. 
Accordingly the Latin Vulgate, the standard of the 
Roman Catholic Church, has non peccet, ''may not sin," 
as also the interlineal translations in the Antwerp, 
London, and Paris Polyglots ; and in the latter two 
we have the same rendering of the Syriac and Arabic 
versions. 

The same criticism and correction apply to Eccl. vii. 
20, which should read thus : "For there is not a just 
man upon earth, that doeth good, and may not sin," 
the verb, to sin, being future, to denote a contingency, 
a possible, not a positive, future event. A little schol- 



OLD TESTAMENT STUMBLING-BLOCKS REMOVED. I 53 

arship applied to these texts would greatly improve the 
theology of some people. 

Job ix. 20, ''If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall 
condemn me : if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove 
me perverse." This verse lies just as strongly against 
justification as against entire sanctification. In the 
evangelical sense, in which God is the justifier and the 
sanctifier of the believer in^ his Son, this verse contra- 
dicts neither. Job disclaimed justification by works 
and absolute perfection. That he had evangelical per- 
fection, unfaltering faith, unquestioned loyalty, and per- 
fect love, the root of all obedience, God's testimony 
ought to be conclusive, " Hast thou considered my 
servant Job ... a perfect and an upright man, one 
that feareth God, and escheweth [is shy of] evil .? " 

The true state of the facts is this : Job's professed 
comforters were three universalists of the old school, 
who viewed the present life as the sphere in which 
perfect justice is displayed, and rewards and punish- 
ments are exactly meted out. Hence, the greatest 
sinner must be the greatest sufferer in this life, and 
vice versa, the greatest bodily sufferer must have been 
the greatest criminal on earth. Job, the greatest suf- 
ferer, must therefore be the greatest sinner. This 
logic Job resented, and he refused to plead his per- 
fect integrity upon any such platform of theological 
errors. He believed that afflictions befall good people 
for disciplinary ends and not for punishment solely. 
Hence, should he prove his own spotless purity, his 
own sufferings would not shake his demonstration, 
or militate against God's absolute justice, because he 
has other reasons than penalty for inflicting physical 



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suffering. For Job to adopt the theology of his three 
friends and then declare his own perfection would have 
been an impeachment of the divine administration 
which would certainly "prove him perverse." Never- 
theless, we are not left in uncertainty respecting his 
consciousness of inward and outward holiness : " My 
lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter 
deceit ; till I die I will, not remove mine integrity 
[moral wholeness] from me, my righteousness I hold 
fast, and will not let it go : my heart shall not re- 
proach me so long as I live." — Job xxvii. 2-6. This 
is certainly what Dr. Whedon would call a very tall 
profession of spiritual perfection, not made to impeach 
God's righteous administration, but to confound and 
put to eternal silence the wretched errors of his three 
professed friends. 

Psalm xxxvii. 23, 24, is quoted as implying that every 
good man will fall into sin at times, and that God in his 
great mercy will not utterly cast him away. The truth 
is, there is no hint of sin in these verses. None of the 
versions intimate that a falling into sin is meant, but 
rather into adversities, distresses, and troubles, out of 
which God will at last give him a happy issue. 

In Psabn xiv. 1-3 God looks down upon the human 
family aside from divine regenerating grace, and sees 
every one by nature and by practice corrupt and sin- 
ful. St. Paul, in Rom. iii. 10, quotes this passage to 
prove the universal depravity of our race, as proving 
the necessity for that scheme of universal redemption 
in the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which 
he is proceeding to unfold in this theological epistle. 
No one has a right to pervert this text into proof that 
there are none righteous in the kingdom of grace. 



OLD TESTAMENT STUMBLING-BLOCKS REMOVED. I55 

Psalm cxix. 96, '' I have seen an end of all perfec- 
tion : but thy commandment is exceeding broad." No 
text in the Old Testament is more frequently quoted 
against Christian perfection, usually with an air of 
triumph, as though that doctrine is pulverized by the 
crushing momentum of this verse. Let us examine it. 
The original word for perfection in this passage is a 
once-used word in the Hebrew Bible. Hence its 
meaning is with scholars a matter of dispute. But 
many of them agree that it is the complete ending 
and vanishing away of anything. Thus Martin Luther 
renders it, " I have seen an end of all things, but thy 
law lasts." Hence, the word perfection not being in 
their version, the Germans have no difficulty with this 
text. All earthly things end, but the Bible lasts. This 
rendering makes the text concordant with Isa. xl. 6-Z. 
and I Pet. i. 24, 25. "All flesh is as grass. The grass 
withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away : but the 
word of the Lord endureth forever." That the idea of 
this text in the alphabetic psalm is the evanescence 
of the earthly and the eternity of the spiritual, espe- 
cially of divine revelation, is proven by the Septuagint 
version, " I have seen the end of every finishing up, 
but thy commandment is very wide," while the Vulgate 
reads, Oninis consiLinmationis finem vidi, literally, " 1 
have seen the end of every consummation." We con- 
fidently make the assertion that no candid scholar, 
however strong his prejudices against evangelical per- 
fection, or loving God with all the heart, after a thor- 
ough study of this text, will ever again hurl it against 
this precious scriptural doctrine and blessed conscious 
experience of myriads of his saints. 



I $6 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXVI. 

ENLARGEMENT OF HEART. 

It was the Psalmist who, according to the Septua- 
gint version, testifies (^Ps. cxix, 32), ''I ran the way of 
thy commandments, when thou didst enlarge my heart." 
In his early spiritual life there was in this Old Testa- 
ment saint the same straitness, slowness, and lack of 
momentum, which characterize young Christians in 
modern times. His service had been enforced by the 
law and its penalties. Duty was a word which had not 
been written over and almost concealed by the super- 
imposed capitals which spell Love. But it seems 
there was a crisis in his religious life where constraint 
ends and joyous liberty begins ; where irksomeness 
disappears, and spontaneity in service is a permanent 
characteristic. The crisis which separates these two 
^experiences is the enlargement of the heart. This is 
I figure for what St. John calls '' perfect love," and 
which St. Paul elsewhere describes as ''the love of God 
shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost ; " though 
he once, at least, employs the Old Testament phrase 
(2 Cor. vi. 11), '' O ye Corinthians, my mouth is opened 
unto you, my heart is enlarged." Reverse the order of 
these clauses, and we have the cause and the effect. 
A full heart makes an unloosed tongue. The inquiry 



ENLARGEMEx\T OF HEART. I 57 

is al limportant, When is this crisis reached ? Some 
say, '* Never this side the dying bed." But no Scrip- 
ture proof of this dismal doctrine is ever given. It is 
not true that the believing soul must be a partly filled 
goblet till it is overflowed by the waters of the river 
of death. Others say : All souls at the new birth are 
deluged with love to the brim ; a love that drives their 
chariot-wheels as swiftly as the mysterious electric 
current drives our street-cars up and down our tri- 
mountain city. Such a steady motive-power is not the 
experience of multitudes, yea, the vast majorities who 
are truly regenerate. Their inertia is great, and the 
impelling power is feeble. Indeed, something worse 
than inertia is to be overcome ; a strong opposition 
often arises within, which it takes all their strength to 
overcome. They have not a heart at leisure from itself 
to concentrate upon the work of God. True it is that 
a few Christians, like John Fletcher, very soon after 
their birth into the kingdom, because of a correct ap- 
prehension of their privilege in the dispensation of the 
Spirit, are deluged with divine love and become giants 
in faith. The mass of believers are mere babes in 
spiritual development. They see days of great weak- 
ness, and are often on the verge of surrender to the 
foe. Some, alas, throw away their arms, and run away 
from the fight, and never renew the battle. Others 
fight all their lives with foes in their own hearts and 
never overcome and cast them out. They have been 
told by their preachers that this war in the members is 
the normal Christian life. Hence, believing their 
preachers instead of the Word of God, they limit his 
power by their unbelief, and never gladly run, but 



158 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

always sadly drag themselves along the heavenly way. 
This large class of Christians need enlightenment and 
encouragement, and not denunciation. They need to 
dwell in thought upon " the exceeding great and pre- 
cious promises," that they may have an experience of 
the " exceeding greatness of God's power to us-ward 
who believe." They need to lock arms with St. Paul 
and walk through his glorious epistles, and get his large 
view of the extent of Christ's saving power, since he 
has sent down the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier. They 
should study the new Greek words which Paul coined 
to express the fulness of divine grace and the wealth 
of privilege which are the heritage of those who fully 
believe ; such as that translated by *' more than con- 
querors " (Rom. vhi. 37), ''much more abound" (Rom. 
V. 20 : 2 Cor. vii. 4), " and the grace of our Lord 
abounded exceedingly with faith and love." — (i Tim. 
i. 14.) Especially should they ponder that declaration 
of God's ability to save, found in 2 Cor. ix. 8, in which 
are two " abounds " and five " alls," — " God is able to 
make all grace abound towards you, that ye always hav- 
ing all sufficiency in all things may abound unto every 
good work." They should daily repeat St. Paul's 
prayer for the Ephesians, emphasizing each petition, es- 
pecially the ascription at the close (^Eph. Hi. 20), " Now 
unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly 
[superabicndantly, above the greatest abundance. — A. 
Clarke] above all that we ask or think, according to 
the power that worketh in us." There is not sufficient 
familiarity with the promises on the part of professed 
Christians. While unbelievers neglect the threaten- 
ings, believers are prone to neglect the promises of the 



ENLARGEMENT OF HEART. 159 

Holy Scriptures. Again, the growing failure to mag- 
nify the Holy Spirit results in constraint, and in the 
legal spirit, instead of the freedom of the evangelical 
spirit, inspiring courage to run through troops of foes. 
How many so-called evangelical Christians there are 
whose creed is practically as defective as was that of 
the first believers in Ephesus, — " We have not so 
much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost " as 
receivable into the heart. 

This important item dropped out of a Christian's 
faith palsies his tongue, paralyzes his hands, and en- 
feebles his feet. If he is a preacher, his message will 
be delivered in the weakness of uncertainty and doubt. 
Splendid rhetoric, and oratorical tones and attitudes, 
are beggarly substitutes for the unction of the Holy 
Ghost. The anointed pulpit will always be mighty. 
The Spirit inspires fearlessness, imparts freedom of 
utterance, enkindles zeal and unconquerable love of 
souls. All of these are elements of genuine eloquence. 
They furnish the man, the subject, and the occasion. 

The formal prayer-meeting would be transformed by 
the enlargement of the heart. Dumbness, the penalty 
of unbelief (Luke i. 20), will find a ready and glad 
utterance, and the dry harangue will be replaced by the 
hallelujah. 

Let the heart of Protestantism be enlarged by the 
fulness of the Comforter, and rivers of salvation would 
flow out unto the ends of the earth, vitalizing those 
organizations which he can use, and sweeping away 
those which have been devised as substitutes for his 
regenerating and sanctifying power. 



l6o HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXVII. 

SPIRITUAL CIRCUMCISION. 

The Old Testament and the New contain, not two 
different religions, but one in different stages of devel- 
opment. Well did Augustine say : " In the Old Testa- 
ment the New lies hidden ; in the New Testament the 
Old lies open." The essential principle of Judaism and 
of Christianity is the same, — supreme love to God. 
The great Teacher and Lawgiver sums up the law, and 
the prophets, and all human duty, in this great word 
LOVE. It is the natural and necessary inference from 
the unity of God, as opposed to polytheism ; hence it 
follows the '^ SJienia,'' the first words every Hebrew 
child is taught to speak {Dent. vi. 4, 5), ''Hear, O 
Israel : the Lord our God is one Lord : and thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all 
thy soul, and with all thy might." 

We are here met by the question, ''Can genuine love 
be evoked by command.-^ Is it not the free, spontane- 
ous outflow of the heart towards the object for which 
it has affinity.-^ How, then, can a soul void of all affinity 
for God love him supremely.'' " This question is more 
important than the theological puzzle, the origin of sin 
in a holy universe, inasmuch as the cure of an evil is 
of far higher interest to the sufferer than its genesis. 



SPIRITUAL CIRCUMCISION. l6l 

If we turn to Rom. viii. 7, we shall be appalled at the 
vastness of the multitude to whom the great command 
of both the law and the gospel is an utter impossibility, 
"because the carnal mind is enmity against God." 
But before we rashly accuse God of injustice, in reap- 
ing obedience where he has not sown ability, let us 
further read our Bibles, and get the whole of the divine 
purpose in this case. It is possible that a scheme of 
wondrous mercy may be found instead of severity. It 
is remarkable that most of those who find fault with 
God have the least knowledge of his revelation. Turn 
again to the Old Testament at Deict. xxx. 6, and the 
difficulty vanishes and God's moral character is vindi- 
cated. He proposes, by a direct, supernatural interpo- 
sition of his almightiness, with man's free consent, to 
perform a piece of spiritual surgery, to cut away the 
carnality which prevents love and invites enmity, and 
to clear the way for the natural up-springing of love, 
filling to the brim every faculty of intelligence and 
sensibility, — ''And the Lord thy God will circumcise 
thine heart, to love the Lord thy God with all thine 
heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live," or 
have real and eternal well-being. Carnality in the 
least degree is obstructive of love of the purest and 
most perfect kind. 

The question now arises, " Who are entitled to this 
heart-circumcision ? " As natural birth within the old 
covenant was a necessary condition of circumcision in 
the flesh, so the new birth under the new covenant is 
the necessary condition of that spiritual circumcision 
without which perfect love cannot exist. This is beau- 
tifully proven by St. Paul in 2 Cor. vii. i ; read in con- 



ID2 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

nection with the last verse of the preceding chapter. 
"Having therefore these promises," — things promised, 
especially adoption as " sons and daughters," — the work 
of entire sanctification is to be perfected in so thorough 
a manner as to exclude every " filthiness of the flesh," 
— all tendencies to those sins which find expression 
through the body, — "and of the spirit," every taint of 
the spirit prompting to sins independent of the mate- 
rial organism, as pride, unbelief, rebellion, hatred, etc. 
The doctrine taught by St. Paul is that spiritual cir- 
cumcision follows spiritual sonship in order to the per- 
fecting of holiness. Impenitent sinners are nowhere 
in the Holy Scriptures exhorted to holiness, to perfec- 
tion, to fulness of the Spirit, but rather to repentance 
and the new birth. Only they who " have been made 
partakers of the Holy Ghost " can be filled with the 
Spirit, only they who have become believers can mount 
up to the altitude of perfect faith, and only they that 
have life are capable of having the more abundant life. 
We now come to the questions : " Who is the author 
of heart-circumcision in New Testament times .-* and in 
exactly what does it consist ? " 

The answer to both of these questions is found in 
Col. ii. II, R. F., "In whom ye were also circumcised 
with a circumcision not made with hands, in the put- 
ting off of the BODY OF THE FLESH in the circumcision 
of Christ;" i.e., that which he provides for believers 
through the efficacy of his atonement. Here we have 
a full account of spiritual circumcision, or entire sancti- 
fication. For judicial clearance from the guilt of "the 
sins of the flesh," through justification by faith, is not 
here described, as King James's Version of a defective 



SPIRITUAL CIRCUMCISION. 163 

MS. teaches, but ratliL'r the perfect riddance of the flesh 
itself, the sin-principle in depraved humanity. *' The 
' body of the flesh,' " says Bishop Ellicott, '' is practically 
synonymous with ' the body of sin,' in Rom. vi. 6, and is 
designedly used in this place to keep up the antithetical 
allusion to legal circumcision, which consisted in the 
cutting away and laying aside of a part (Ex. iv. 25), the 
circumcision by Christ in putting off the whole body of 
the flesh. Similar reasoning is found in John vii. 23, 
where Christ contrasts the greatness of his work on the 
Sabbath, in bestowing perfect and entire healing on the 
cripple, making an entire man whole, with the insignifi- 
cance of circumcision, which purified only part of a man, 
making him only ceremonially clean. But we have not 
done with Col. ii. 11. We call the attention of every 
Greek scholar to the strength of the original noun, 
" putting off." It is a word invented by Paul and found 
nowhere else in the Bible, nor in the whole range of 
Greek literature. To show the thoroughness of the 
cleansing by the complete stripping off and laying aside 
of the propensity to evil, the apostle prefixes one prepo- 
sition (apd) denoting separateness, to another {ek) 
denoting outness, and thus constructs the strongest 
conceivable term for the entire removal of depravity. 
In Col. iii. 9 he uses the same strong combination of 
words, in the form of a participal (used nowhere else 
in the New Testament except in Col. ii. 15, ''having 
stripped away from himself the [hostile] principali- 
ties and powers "), to show how completely the *' old 
man," as well as "his deeds," has been "put off," if 
the believer has realized the full extent of gospel 
salvation. 



164 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

We have now ascertained that Christ is the originator 
of heart-circumcision, and that it figuratively signifies 
entire purgation from the defilement of sin. 

Let us now inquire for the agent who effects this 
wonderful deliverance in which the scheme of redemp- 
tion reaches its climax. For this purpose we turn to 
Rom. a. 29, and we find a photograph of a real Jew, 
"who is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the 
heart, in the spirit," i.e., says Meyer, " in the Holy 
Spirit in the definite sense, and as distinguished from 
the spiritual conditions and tendencies which he pro- 
duces." 

Thus we find the whole Trinity engaged in the cir- 
cumcision of the human heart. The Father instituted 
the symbolical rite, and intended its spiritual efficacy ; 
the Son originated its causal ground, his atoning blood ; 
and the Holy Spirit is both the sphere in which holiness 
exists, and the agent who introduces it into the soul. 
Well may the believers thus soliloquize with Faber : — 

"Oh, wonderful, oh, passing thought! 
The love that God hath had for thee, 
Spending on thee no less a sum 
Than the undivided Trinity ! " 

We are often asked for scriptural proofs of the instan- 
taneousness of entire sanctification. We add to those 
which are customarily quoted as indicating momentary 
action, because of the tense in the Greek, all the texts 
in the Bible in which the circumcision of the heart is 
spoken of. It is a remarkable fact that this is the only 
kind of circumcision which the spirit of inspiration 
thought worthy of mention, except in Jer. ix. 25, from 



SPIRITUAL CIRCUMCISION. 165 

the entrance of Joshua into Canaan, to the circumcision 
of John the Baptist, a period of 1,450 years. 

The conclusion to which this Bible Reading conducts 
us is that entire sanctification, as an act, is the divinely 
appointed gateway into perfect love as a state. As the 
act is always followed by the state, and the state always 
implies the preceding act, entire sanctification, and lov- 
ing God with all the heart, are practically equivalent 
phrases. By perfect love we mean pure love. It is 
perfect in kind, but is capable of infinite increase. 

There were three remarkable transition points in 
the religious development of Abraham. The first was 
separation from his kindred and country at the divine 
command. It is a mistake to say that^this separation 
was because the kindred and country were polytheistic 
— an environment unfavorable to the growth of mono- 
theism. This would argue the removal of all modern 
Christian converts out of heathendom to some other 
country in order to the attainment of the highest 
spiritual excellence. Our missionaries do not approve 
of such a segregation. God separated Abraham from 
his native country, because he would make him the 
founder of a national and localized religion in a country 
best adapted to this purpose. 

The call of Abraham is typical of that call of the 
Holy Spirit which sooner or later comes to every sin- 
ner, to turn away from all known sin as a preparation 
for saving faith in Christ. 

The second point of transition in Abraham's life was 
\\\^ jiislificaiion by faith. He believed in Jehovah ; and 
he counted it to him for righteousness. St. Paul cites 
this as a conspicuous instance of justification by faith 



l66 HALF-HOURS WITH St. PAUL. 

under the old covenant. Abraham had exercised faith 
in obeying the call to separation ; but it was what theo- 
logians style prevenient rather than saving faith. 

Twenty-four years after Abraham's first call, and 
several years after his justification, he passed the third 
and final transition in his religious career, which in 
modern parlance would be called his spiritual perfection. 
{Gen. xvii. i.) When he was ninety years old and nine, 
Jehovah disclosed to him his almightiness under the 
name of El-Shaddai, Almighty God, as the ground of a 
new commandment, ''Be thou perfect." With this in- 
junction was the institution of circumcision as neces- 
sary to the perfection required, demonstrating typically 
that spiritual circumcision, or entire sanctification, is 
the gateway into Christian perfection, or pure love, 
styled by John ''perfect love which casteth out all tor- 
menting fear." For in "the self same day " in which 
Abraham was commanded to walk before God and be 
perfect, he submitted to the painful rite of circumcis- 
ion, the removal, in Hebrew conception, of that bodily 
impurity with which he was born. Here we find a 
striking type of original or birth sin, denied by all the 
self-styled modern liberalists, put away by "the circum- 
cision of Christ " through the agency of the sanctify- 
ing Spirit, not by a gradual outgoing of native depravity, 
but by the heroic treatment of instantaneous excision. 
Hence, the doctrine of spiritual circumcision is a two- 
edged sword, cutting away Pelagianism with one edge 
and gradualism with the other. The first is the denial 
of inbred or birth sin, and the second is the denial of 
its instantaneous extinction when faith lays hold of him 
who is able to save unto the uttermost. 



SPIRITUAL CIRCUMCISION. \6j 

Some persons may insist that there was a fourth 
crisis in the life of the father of the faithful, — the su- 
preme test of his faith in obeying the command to offer 
up Isaac. It was a crisis, but not a transition from one 
state of grace to another. God found Abraham perfect 
in loyalty and love, and demonstrated this fact to all 
the coming generations of Bible-readers. The three 
marked epochs in his life were his separation, his justi- 
fication, and his entire sanctification, the beginning of 
his perfect walk before Jehovah, and not before mis- 
judging mortals. 



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XXVIII. 

THE " OVERCOMETHS " IN THE REVELATION. 

In the message of Jesus Christ to the seven churches 
there recurs a favorite verb on which the destiny of 
each individual member turns. As the conditions of 
salvation are the same in all ages, we should understand 
what is implied in this verb to overcome, and how vast 
and various are the rewards which will follow the 
victory. 

C/iap. ii. 7, "To him that overcometh will I give 
to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the 
paradise of God." There is implied here that the 
Christian life is a perpetual warfare. For the verb in 
every message is in the present tense, which denotes, 
not singleness of action, but continuousness. There 
are foes which may be conquered so completely by the 
stroke of the omnipotent Holy Spirit that they are said 
to be crucified and destroyed. In Rom. vi. 6 one of 
these foes is spoken of by name, ''our old man." So 
long as he lives in the regenerate he is plotting to 
regain his lost dominion. Hence there is no safety 
except in his capital punishment. A dethroned, 
wicked king is always a menace to the successor, and 
a nucleus for a rebellion. On the principle, "better 
one die than many," wise statesmanship brings him to 



THE '' OVERCOMETHS " IN THE REVELATION. 169 

the block, as the stern guardians of Britain's liberties 
brought Charles I. Till that event there must be war- 
fare with an enemy within. Afterwards the war is 
not what the Romans called an " intestine," but a 
" foreign " war. Many people think they must carry 
a civil war in their breasts till they drop into the 
grave. Not so the inspired apostles after the day of 
Pentecost. What are the foreign foes with whom we 
may never make a truce ? One of them is the world, 
a term comprehending the sum total of the influences 
hostile to the spiritual life which flow from our social 
environment, its maxims, fashions, and principles. To 
these there must be a constant resistance. Pleasures 
which becloud the spiritual vision must be denied ; 
business must be conducted on the principles of New 
Testament morality, although these yield less immedi- 
ate profit than the principles of current commercial 
morality ; and voluntary social alliances with unbelief 
must be refused at whatever cost. In every case, the 
spiritual must be put above the material. Everything 
that puts eternal life in jeopardy must be thrust aside 
or trampled under foot. Only clear-eyed faith can do 
this. *' This is the victory that overcometh the world, 
even our faith." By faith the things not seen and eter- 
nal are brought near, and are made more influential over 
conduct and character than things seen and temporal. 
Another foe is the personal devil who will be spoken 
of hereafter. The reward here promised carries us 
back to the gates of our lost Eden, makes the sentinel 
cherubim sheath the flaming sword and open the bolted 
gate, and lead the conqueror to the tree from which 
Adam never ate. In Chapter xxii. 14 we have a more 



1^0 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

minute description of those who will ultimately have 
access to this tree, " Blessed are they that wash their 
robes." — R. V. Of course the purifying medium is the 
blood of the Lamb, as in chapter vii. 14, where the 
washing and the whitening of the robes are spoken of, 
the former, according to Hengstenberg and J. Fletcher, 
denoting regeneration, and the latter entire sanctifica- 
tion. 

It is remarkable that what the human race lost in 
the first three chapters of Genesis, believers gain in the 
first three in the Revelation. Had the Scriptures a 
different close they would make us all pessimists. As 
it is they open wide the door of hope. 

Chap. it. II, "He that overcometh shall not be hurt 
of the second death." This is the negative side of 
the reward figuratively expressed as eating of the tree 
of life. In a physical sense he may " be hurt " by 
the fires of martyrdom, but such is his grip of faith 
that he is lifted above the second death, defined in 
chapter xx. 14 as the 'Make of fire." When Polycarp 
was threatened by the proconsul with death by fire, he 
replied, "Thou threatenest me with the fire that burns 
for an hour and in a little time is extinguished ; for 
thou knowest not of the eternal fire that is reserved for 
the ungodly." It is utterly impossible in the present 
life to have any appreciation of the unspeakable horror 
of the second death. Physical death, in point of suf- 
fering, is of so little moment that Jesus Christ drops 
it entirely out of view in his description of the future 
of the believer. " Whosoever liveth and believeth in 
me shall never die." It is for our spiritual health to 
keep in mind what we are saved from as well as what 



THE " OVERCOMETHS ' IN THE REVELATION. I/I 

we are saved to. In both these texts the exemption 
from the second death is expressed in a double nega- 
tive, which gives great precision and certainty to the 
promise as it stands in the Greek. 

CJiap. ii. 17. For the special encouragement of the 
church in Pergamos, by reason of her dwelling where 
Satan's seat is, and where the fires of martyrdom had 
been kindled, a twofold reward is promised to the over- 
comer, — the hidden manna, and the white stone. The 
first symbolizes Christ himself, the true bread from 
Heaven. It is hidden, because our spiritual life, with 
its springs and nourishments, is ''hidden with Christ 
in God." Every believer has meat to eat which the 
world knows not of. The best explanation of the white 
stone is that it was a small white marble ticket of 
admission to banquets. Both together, the manna and 
the stone, signify a heavenly feast with a right of 
way to it already assured. The new name is the new 
nature, as the name of Jacob was changed when the 
mysterious angel made him a '' partaker of the divine 
nature." When Christ in his high priestly prayer (John 
xvii. 6) says, " I have manifested thy name," he means 
the revelation of the glory of his Father's moral charac- 
ter, — love, holiness, justice, wisdom, and truth. Only 
he who has experienced this blissful change can have 
any knowledge of it, except the second-hand knowl- 
edge, which comes from the life and testimony of the 
regenerate. 

Chap. ii. 26, " To him that overcometh will I give 
power over the nations. And he shall rule them with 
a rod of iron," etc. This is a quotation from the Sec- 
ond Psalm in which this promise is applied to the Son. 



1/2 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

The two texts are harmonized by the fact that appro- 
priating faith mystically identifies the believer with 
Christ, in such a way that he may be said to reign in 
Christ, who also represents him. Though the saints 
have no subjects personally, yet are they kings in his 
royalty, sharing his glory ; though they offer no sacri- 
fices, yet are they priests in his priesthood, having his 
prerogative of access unto God ; though they arraign 
no criminal, yet are they one with him in judgment, 
approving every judicial sentence. Even in this world 
the Christian governments dominate the pagan nations. 
But there is another promise, " And I will give him 
the morning star." In explaining these poetical words 
we will repress our imagination and use only our Bibli- 
cal knowledge. In Chap. xxii. i6, Jesus styles himself 
*'the bright and morning star." But how do I get 
a title-deed to this brightest star in the firmament.-* 
Peter (2 Epistle, i. 19) answers this important ques- 
tion. "• We have a more sure word of prophecy ; where- 
unto ye do well to take heed . . . until the morning 
star (Alford) arise in your hearts." Study the Scrip- 
tures with faith, and the Christ portrayed therein as 
a historical person will enter your consciousness as a 
glorious reality. You will ask for no other credentials 
in proof of his divinity. It would be like lighting a 
tallow-dip to see the sunrise. St. Paul needed no 
human testimonial " when it pleased God to reveal his 
Son in me," nor was there any asking advice of '' flesh 
and blood " whether he should herald the true Messiah 
to all nations. He had the morning star which lighted 
up every step of his journey, from Damascus to Nero's 
block. 



THE '* OVERCOMETHS IN THE REVELATION. 1 73 

Chap. in. 5, " He that overcometh shall thus be ar- 
rayed in white garments." — R. V. The word "thus" 
refers to the fourth verse, where it is said that, " A few 
names in Sardis which did not defile their garments 
shall walk with me in white ; for they are worthy." 
These are they who have not sullied the purity of their 
Christian character by the stains of sin. They are to 
have the high honor of walking arm in arm with our 
glorified Redeemer. He could walk thus intimately 
with none others without soiling his own robe. 

Chap. Hi. 12, ''Him that overcometh will I make a 
pillar in the temple of my God." We read in chapter 
xxi. 22 that there is no temple in the heavenly Jeru- 
salem, but that "the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb 
are the temple of it." To be pillars in such a temple 
is to have a fixed and important place in the divine re- 
gard. In that glorious city, which is all temple, the 
victors of faith are its living stones and pillars. Many 
a worldly professor with a long purse, who has been 
regarded as a pillar in the church on earth, will be 
sadly disappointed in the future world. The eloquent 
J. N. Mafiit was accustomed to scathe such, thus : " Ye 
worldly professors who think yourselves pillars of the 
church will soon find out that ye are only caterpillars 
in God's house." How different are those overcomers 
whom God will indorse first with his own name, and 
secondly, with the name of the New Jerusalem, and 
thirdly, with "my new name." 

Chap. Hi. 21, "To him that overcometh will I grant 
to sit with me in my throne," etc. I have always re- 
garded this as the tallest promise in the whole Bible. 
Whenever I attempt in thought to scale its height, my 



174 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

head begins to swim and I give up the attempt. Does 
it mean that the law is to be so completely absorbed in 
love that we are no more to recognize its existence ? 
Does it mean that God has so great confidence in 
the spiritual heroes who come up from earth's Water- 
loos and Gettysburgs with waving palms, that he can 
safely relax all authority over them, and seat them 
by the side of his crowned Son, reflecting the bright- 
ness of his glory. Says Bishop Butler, " There may 
possibly be in the creation beings to whom the author 
of nature manifests himself under this most amiable 
of all characters — this of infinite, absolute benevo- 
lence . . . but he manifests himself to us under the 
character of a righteous governor." It may be that 
after their earthly probation the overcomers are to 
be the beings spoken of by this profound writer. At 
any rate, the outlook from the summit of this promise, 
to him who has nerves steady enough to climb up to 
it, must be inexpressibly glorious. 

CJiap. xxi. 7, '' He that overcometh shall inherit these 
thino^s ; and I will be his God, and he shall be mv 
son." — R. V. We need a large volume to exhaust 
all the blessedness implied in sonship and heirship to 
God. Let each of my readers write that volume for 
himself. It would be a great means of grace. This 
Bible Reading would be incomplete without noting the 
weapons by which we may overcome. These are found 
in Chapter xii. ii, "And they overcame him [Satan] by 
the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testi- 
mony." This contest is in the form of a criminal suit. 
Satan appears as "the accuser of our brethren." There 
is no use in bringing in witnesses to establish the spot- 



THE " OVERCOMETITS " IN THE REVELATION. 1/5 

less innocence of our brethren, for they have all sinned 
and cannot make that plea of a perfect past. What 
plea will prevail ? Acknowledge ourselves sinners, and 
then cry, "for me, for me, the Saviour died." The 
blood of the Lamb is a plea that Satan cannot answer, 
especially when there is added the personal testimony 
to its cleansing efficacy. This rules the devil's accusa- 
tion out of God's court. It is impossible for the right- 
eous judge to condemn one bringing this plea, the blood 
of Christ attested by experience and perseveringly con- 
firmed by a holy life before an unbelieving world. This 
is a fireproof safe which will stand the fires of the 
Judgment Day. There is no other. 



1/6 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXIX. 

WHY DID MOSES VEIL HIS FACE ? 

The revision throws much hght on this question, 
showing that the traditional answer is erroneous. 
That answer is, that the purpose of the veil was to 
subdue the excessive brightness, or to conceal it en- 
tirely, so that the Israelites could look at Moses and 
come nigh without fear. 

Let us first study Ex. xxxiv. 29-35, in the A. J^. and 
the R. J^. The chief difference is found in verse ^^. 
The A. J\ reads thus : "And //// ]\Ioses had done 
speaking with them, he put a veil on his face." The 
word ''till" is in italics to indicate that it has no cor- 
responding Hebrew term. The inference is natural 
that the veil is put on to allay the fear that kept the 
people at a distance. See verse 30. But the R. K 
gives an entirely different meaning. " And when 
Closes had done speaking with them, he put a veil on 
his face." This "when" completely contradicts the 
notion that the purpose of the veil was to banish fear 
and to draw the people to hear the message of Jehovah. 
For he spake with unveiled face, and did not put on 
the veil till he "had done speaking." Why did he veil 
himself then ? Certainly not to allay the fears of his 
brethren, and draw them into audience with him. 



WHY DID MOSES VEIL HIS FACE? \JJ 

These ends had already been attained. In vain do we 
ask the Old Testament why the lawgiver veiled him- 
self. Hence we turn to the New Testament. For the 
Bible has this peculiarity, that it is a self-explaining 
book when in the hands of the diligent student, who 
patiently confronts Scripture with Scripture. 

Turn now to 2 Cor. Hi. 7-18. St. Paul is contrast- 
ing the two dispensations, that of the letter that killeth, 
and that of the spirit that giveth life. The former he 
styles glorious, although it was the ministration of 
death written and engraven in stones. The allusion 
to the law engraven on the two tables of stone sug- 
gests the glory that finds expression in the shining 
face of Moses bringing them down from Mount Sinai. 
But it was a transient, not an abiding and eternal radi- 
ance, as was evinced by the fact that Moses put on a 
veil to conceal from the people the evanescence of that 
glory, symbolizing the transitoriness of the dispensa- 
tion which he was introducing. It seemed to be sud- 
denly revealed to him that he was founding, not a 
system of realities, but of shadows of coming realities. 
Methinks, as this great prophet was descending the 
steep slope of Sinai, he had a sudden vision of a greater 
Prophet, who would stand upon the earth after fifteen 
centuries, and found a dispensation whose glory should 
never wane, but wax brighter and brighter forever. 
The contrast of the solar light streaming eternally 
from the face of the coming Messiah, with the quickly 
dying splendors which momentarily glowed on his own 
countenance, of whose rapid fading away he was him- 
self conscious, prompted the veiling of his face, lest 
the Israelites, ** looking steadfastly on the end of that 



1/8 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

which was passing away," would read its symbolical 
meaning, the transitoriness of their religion, and 
undervalue its blessings, and turn away from its re- 
quirements in disgust. Hence the purpose of the veil. 
But now mark the use that Paul makes of this act in 
heightening the contrast between the law and the 
gospel. The pentecostal dispensation invests every 
believer with a glory which is not doomed to fade, but 
which will from its very nature eternally increase in 
brightness. We will never need a veil to conceal the 
vanishing glory. This is the privilege of the most 
obscure and illiterate disciple of Christ. Do you wish 
for proof .-^ Harken, ''But we all, with unveiled face, 
reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are trans- 
formed into the same image from glory to glory, even 
as from the Lord the Spirit." — R. V^ 

How beautifully this describes the permanency of 
that experience which Christ promises through the 
abiding of the Comforter in the heart of the believer, 
spoken of by Paul elsewhere as the temple of God, the 
habitation of God through the Spirit. It is not evanes- 
cent, because it is the glory of the indwelling Christ, 
the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 

Thank God, all ye believers in the Holy Ghost, that 
we live not in a dispensation of shadows, but of reali- 
ties, not of types, but of the glorious antitype, our 
adorable Christ, through whom we receive and daily 
enjoy the Spirit of truth, or the Spirit of reality, in 
contrast with all the adumbrations and unrealities of 
all the rudimentary dispensations of Gentilism, Patri- 
archism, and Judaism. 

The dispensation of the Holy Spirit is never to be 



WHY DID MOSES VEIL HIS FACE? I /Q 

superseded by anything more glorious on the earth. 
Its glory will not pale before any brighter dispensation. 
No future believers will ever need veils to hide the 
dying splendors of the abiding Paraclete. The indwell- 
ing Spirit is heaven below, just as it will be heaven 
above. For the river of the water of life, clear as 
crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the 
Lamb, described in Rev. xxii. i, is only a poetic con- 
ception of the joy of the Holy Spirit filling to the brim 
the spirits of saints below and saints above. 

"Angelic spirits, countless souls, 
Of Thee have drunk their fill; 
And to eternity will drink 
Thy joy and glory still." 

The future permanency of the fulness of the Spirit is 
implied in St. Paul's assured declaration, " I know that, 
when I shall corne unto you, I shall come in the ful- 
ness of the blessing of Christ." — Rom. xv. 29, R. V. 
Here is no expectation of the subsidence of the con- 
scious fulness of the Spirit. His positiveness respect- 
ing the future undimmed brightness of the Son of God 
revealed within him (Gal. i. 16), seemingly excludes 
the possibility of his ever needing a veil to hide from 
men and angels the fading glory. 

This fulness is the heritage of every child of God 
who claims it in the name of Christ, and this con- 
fidence of its future abiding belongs as a birthright to 
every persevering believer. 

" O little heart of mine ! shall pain 
Or sorrow make thee moan, 
When all this God is all for thee, 
A Father all thine own? " 



l80 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXX. 

AN EXPOSITORY SERMON. 

" Herein is our love made perfect, that we maj^ have boldness in the day of judg- 
ment : because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love ; but 
perfect love casteth out fear : because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not 
made perfect in love." — i John iv. 17, 18. 

The foundation of the Christian doctrines is laid in 
the word of God. We, Protestants, believe that no 
doctrine is to be received or enforced upon any person 
that is not found here in the open Bible. Neverthe- 
less, the confirmations of a doctrine are found in our 
own experience. I believe all the doctrines of the 
Bible are confirmed in Christian experience, even the 
doctrine of the Trinity. You know that prayer reaches 
its highest development only in connection with that 
doctrine. If you do not, I do ; and no one can have 
a real earnest grip on God who has no mediator be- 
tween God and himself, no divine Christ, no personal 
Comforter. So that all the doctrines of the word of 
God find a response in human needs and in human ex- 
perience. They are confirmed. The object of this 
Biblical exposition is twofold. First, to develop the 
doctrinal basis of the higher forms of Christian experi- 
ence ; and secondly, to encourage confirmatory testi- 
mony. And it is wise to keep these two running right 
along, side by side, grounding the doctrine in the clear 



An expository sermon. i8i 

exposition of the word of God, and then calling forth 
the witnesses to confirm its truth. 

The text has two words in it — fear and love ; and 
these, by the way, make up all there is of religion. All 
pagan religions of the world are made up of fear, dread 
of their gods. The only religion in the world the sub- 
stance of which is love came down from heaven in the 
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity is the 
only religion that ever existed upon the face of the 
earth, or ever will exist, the essence of which is love. 
We shall have something to say farther on with re- 
spect to the matter of fear and love in Christian 
experience. 

A little exegesis now of the text, a little explanation 
of what it means. In the first place, the first verse we 
read has a dispute about it. '' Herein is our love made 
perfect." If you look in the margin of your Bibles you 
will find it reads there, '* Love with us." "Herein is 
love with us made perfect." There is a class of writers 
and teachers who insist that the love spoken of in that 
sentence is not our love toward God, but God's love 
toward us. The absurdity of that interpretation is 
found in the very declaration that God's love is ever 
made perfect. It always is perfect, and was from the 
beginning. The second difficulty is, that it is out of 
harmony with the context, for the word '' love " before 
this text occurs in the following connection : " And he 
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God." That is ^o say, 
he who loves God, and abides in that love, dwells in God. 
And the very next passage after this indicates that the 
love is the love which proceeds from the human heart. 
"There is no fear in love ; " not referring to God's love 



1 82 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

to US, but our love toward God. We contend, therefore, 
that the word *' love " right along in these three verses 
refers to the human love, the love of a human soul 
going out toward God. The class of writers that we 
speak of, who prefer the other way, considering that 
this refers to God's love, do so because it stands in the 
way of their theory that no person can have perfect 
lo\''e who dwells here on the earth. I think John did 
not belong to that class of people. " Herein is our 
love made perfect ; " the love which we have toward 
God, that we may have confidence or boldness in view 
of the day of judgment, not simply in the day of judg- 
ment. For John is speaking now of what the Christian 
feels in contemplation of the day of judgment ; and this 
is the confidence which we have in view of the day of 
judgment, and this confidence is a token, an assurance, 
a declaration, that love has reached perfection in the 
heart. That is to say, it has excluded all antagonisms 
to itself. All dread, all fear, tormenting and servile 
fear, have been excluded ; and the thought of the 
apostle is that this is the test of perfect love, love 
which has become pure and unmingled, excluding 
everything which is antagonistic to it, so that the per- 
son can contemplate the descending Judge without a 
fear. 

How is it with you this hour, supposing this roof 
were removed, and you should see with these natural 
eyes of yours the great white throne descending, and 
the Judge of the quick and the dead seated thereon } 
What emotion arises in your heart in view of that, if 
you should think of it for a moment as a real fact } Is 
there a shrinking away, is there fear, is there dread ? 



AN EXPOSITORY SERMON. 1 83 

I think I would meet him half-way. I think it is 
Bishop Simpson who uses this illustration. If you go 
into a machine-shop where the floor is covered with 
dirt and iron filings, you take a strong magnet and pass 
it near the floor, and every particle of iron will leave 
the dirt, and spring up and cleave to the magnet. And 
he says that when the Lord Jesus Christ shall come 
into the sphere of this world in his glorified person, the 
moment he descends into our atmosphere the magne- 
tism of his glorified person will draw the body of every 
believer out of the dust to meet him in the air. There 
is no fear in perfect or pure love. This is the thought 
of John here. John was a very peculiar writer. He 
was not a reasoner like the Apostle Paul. Paul de- 
lighted to run off in long chains of logic. John was 
an intuitive man ; he stood face to face with truth, 
and he declared it. He was very much like his Lord 
and Master. He had been so intimate with him that 
his spiritual intuitions were awake and clear. What 
was self-evident to him, in other people had to be 
reached by a long, laborious process of logic. John 
therefore announces, and when he attempts to reason 
he sometimes drops off one premise, and comes to his 
conclusion without it ; and so we have to study to find 
out the missing link. There is a missing link here in 
our text, and it is this : The Judge will not condemn 
fac-similes of himself. And this is his syllogism, if we 
may construct it. The Judge will not condemn fac- 
similes of himself. We are fac-similes of the Lord 
Jesus. Therefore he will not condemn us, and we 
have no fear in view of the day of judgment. We are 
fac-similes of him. Why should we be afraid of judg- 



184 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

ment ? He will not condemn those who are just like 
himself. That is the logic of John if you put in the 
missing link here. 

*' The sense of our text must be gained," says Dean 
Alford, the great English scholar, '' by strictly keeping 
to the tenses of the text," especially the passage which 
I have just read : " Because as he is, so are we in this 
world." Some people alter the text and make it read 
thus : '' Because as he was, so are we in this world." 
It is a great truth that we are as Jesus was in this 
world. He was abused, misunderstood, he was perse- 
cuted, villified, maligned, and at last they hung him up 
between two thieves ; and he says himself, " As they 
have persecuted me, they will persecute you." It is 
a great truth that we are in this world very much as 
Jesus Christ was when he was here, misunderstood and 
persecuted as he was. 

But that is not the utterance of John here. John 
uses the present tense and not the past. Suppose we 
alter another verb here in the text, we shall have a 
great truth, but not a truth that John announces. Be- 
cause as he is, we shall be hereafter. As he is glorified 
we shall be hereafter ; we shall stand a row of glorified 
brothers with Jesus at the head. Splendid truth ! But 
John does not announce it in this text. And Dean 
Alford insists that we shall cling to the exact tenses 
in order to get the meaning. And the tense is this : 
Because as he zs, to-day, in heaven, so we are in 
this world. In what respect is the likeness.? I will 
give you Dean Alford's note on this subject. He was 
not considered a " perfectionist." He was regarded 
as very well-balanced, a very proper and conservative 



AN EXPOSITORY SERMON. 1 85 

Church of England man. So I give you his note upon 
it that you may see that I am not straining the passage 
at all. This is his note. He asks the question : 
Wherein is the likeness ? As Jesus is to-day en- 
throned on the throne of the Father, so are we in this 
world. He says the likeness is not in the fact of trials 
and persecutions through which we are passing. It is 
not in the fact that we are the adopted sons of God, or 
beloved of God, as he, the only begotten Son, is loved of 
God. In the third place, it is not by our being not of 
the w^orld, as Christ is not of the world. In the fourth 
place, it is not in the fact that we live in love as he 
lives in love ; but in the fact that we are righteous as he 
is righteous. This is the note of Dean Alford upon 
that subject, — that we are righteous in this world as 
he is righteous. And he confirms that position by 
quoting* several passages in this very epistle to show 
that that is a favorite thought with John. He refers to 
the 2d chapter and 29th verse, ''If ye know that he 
is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth right- 
eousness is born of him." And in the 3d chapter and 
3d verse you will find: " And every one that hath this 
hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." 
Dean Alford goes on to say that John refers to the 
fundamental truth on which our love rests, and says, 
'' Because we are absolutely like Christ, because we are 
in Christ himself, because he lives in us — without 
this there can be no likeness to him." Hence, the like- 
ness to Christ consists in the fact that we have the 
moral image of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, the 
holiness of Christ. Not an imputed holiness, but an 
imparted, an inwrought holiness, making us fac-similes 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. 



1 86 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

We now come to the topic which we said we would 
speak of, — the fear and love that the Christian experi- 
ences. I have said that all pagan religions are made 
up of fear. There are four possibilities of the com- 
bination of fear and love. 

In the first place, there is one class of people who 
have neither fear nor love. I do not refer to pagans, 
but to a class of people worse than pagans, — gospel- 
hardened sinners. They do not love God, and they 
have no fear. I am sorry to say that there is a large 
class of these in the country. The second class is 
made up of those who fear without love, and the very 
first step toward reaching the first class is to bring 
them into the second; bring them under conviction for 
sin and make them fear ; uncap the smoking pit of 
perdition and let them look into it and see the dreadful 
end of the wicked, I believe in preaching the* terrors 
of the law. I believe one great error of modern times 
is to omit the preaching of the law. John Wesley said 
there was a class of men that held gospel services, but 
for his part he held law and gospel services. And in 
order to bring men who have neither fear nor love into 
a better state, you must preach to them the law of God. 
As Bishop Taylor said : You must broadsword them 
with the law. Cut them to the heart ; make them cry 
out for fear of the penalty of violated law. When sin- 
ners are thus convicted they have fear of God without 
love, and we are to treat them so as to point them away 
from Sinai, after they have had a glimpse of its fiery 
lightnings, to Calvary, and to the Lord Jesus Christ. 
The third class is made up of those who have both love 
and fear. I think, if a census was taken of the whole 



AN EXPOSITORY SERMON. iS/ 

Christian church by a competent person (and that com- 
petent person would have to have omniscience to read 
all hearts), he would find a very large number, I am 
afraid a majority, of the Christian church, whose Chris- 
tianity is not spurious, but is in the mixed condition 
of fear, or dread, and love ; and that is their condition 
before God. The impulse to service is largely fear, not 
a mighty, resistless love moving them on as upon the 
wings of angels. The fourth class is the class spoken 
of by John in our text, love without fear, which he 
calls perfect love. I do not think that John, when 
he spoke of that class, was thinking of angels or ima- 
ginary beings. He was speaking out of the depths of 
his own experience. He knew the possibility of hav- 
ing love without fear filling all the soul. Love the 
impulse to service ; love moving glad souls further in 
every line of activity to which they are appointed by 
the Holy Spirit, or by the indications of divine Provi- 
dence. I thank God for the possibility of living in 
this world in this blessed condition, divested of all 
fear that hath torment, all dread of God, all dread of 
the penalty or punishment of the law. 

I call your attention to the exact language of John 
here. He says, perfect love casts out fear; not re- 
presses it, not holds it down, but casts it out, separates 
it from the soul. What is dread ? What is fear ? 
Why, it is the first-born of sin. Study the second chap- 
ter of Genesis, when our first parents committed sin. 
What was the first-born emotion in their hearts when 
they heard the voice of God in the garden ? Dread, 
fear, a disposition to hide themselves. When, there- 
fore, the first-born is cast out, you see that the mother, 



1 88 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

sin, is cast out also. If fear is cast out, we say the 
mother that breeds the fear is also cast out. For if sin 
remains in the heart, there must be more or less dread 
or fear. 

Now, notice that John does not say of these persons 
who are not made perfect in love that they are not 
Christians. John is too sagacious for that. He does 
not throw stones at them. He does not say you are a 
guilty sinner because your love is a mixed love. What 
he does say is this, — that it is not made perfect, it is 
not complete, it is not pure ; there are elements in it 
which give it a mingled character. The plain implica- 
tion is that there are degrees in Christian love, and 
that it is possible for us to live and to love year after 
year with an imperfect love ; and it is possible also for 
men dwelling on the earth, living in the body, sur- 
rounded by the various temptations of this probationary 
state, to be perfect in love, to have pure love. 

But what is perfect love ? If you should go back to 
the Old Testament you would find what perfect love 
is ; for the Old Testament and the New are at the bot- 
tom all the same, and the same doctrines are taught. 
I turn to Deut. vi. 4, 5, for the answer to the ques- 
tion : ''What is perfect love .'^ " It begins with the 
celebrated, " Hear, O Israel : the Lord our God is one 
Lord." Every Jew babe born into the world is taught 
to say that verse. Then follows this: ''And thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all 
thy soul, and with all thy might." That is the doctrine 
of the Old Testament, which is a definition of the per- 
fect love which John speaks of in the New Testament 
near its close, showing the unity of the two dispensa- 



AN EXPOSITORY SERMON. 1 89 

tions, showing that true religion has always been in 
the world. 

But somebody here starts up and says, '' That is an 
impossible command. Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thine heart, mind, and strength." And he 
has a text to sustain him in the declaration. The text 
is this : " Because the carnal mind is enmity against 
God : for it is not subject to the law of God, neither 
indeed can be." Does God give impossible commands ? 
John in this very epistle says his commandments are 
not grievous, not oppressive, not beyond our power to 
obey. Every command implies a promise of aid, of 
help to fulfil the command. And the command which 
I have quoted is the biggest command in the Bible, the 
all-including command of love toward God and love 
toward our fellow-men, for that follows necessarily from 
it. There accompanies, therefore, every command, a 
promise of grace to aid in keeping that command, an 
implied promise. What is the implied promise here .^ 
Turn to the same Old Testament. Deut. xxx. 6 
shows how men will be assisted to obey this com- 
mandment. "And the Lord thy God will circumcise 
thine heart to love the Lord thy God with all thine 
heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." 
Here it is, then, in a nutshell. God does not give 
people impossible commands. When he commands 
you to love him with all your heart, he sends down the 
divine and blessed Holy Spirit to perform a surgical 
operation upon your heart, so that you may love him ; 
to cut away the carnality from your being, to remove 
the depravity from your heart, and to give you ability 
to fulfil this great command. Circumcision is the type 



1 90 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

of the entire sanctification of the heart. The doctrine 
of spiritual circumcision comes into the New Testa- 
ment in a rather remarkable form. I want to quote 
from Col. ii. ii, "In whom ye were also circumcised 
with a circumcision not made with hands, in the put- 
ting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision 
of Christ." Not the body of the sins of the flesh, but 
the body or totality of the flesh, the sphere of sin, as 
in Rom. vi. 6, where "the body of sin is destroyed." 
See the revision. The circumcision of Christ, that 
is, the circumcision which Christ affords through his 
mediation and through the gift of the Holy Spirit, is 
entire sanctification. 

The doctrine of our text, then, is simply this : that 
the gateway into perfect love is spiritual circumcision 
or entire sanctification. Entire sanctification, like cir- 
cumcision, is an instantaneous act, the gateway into a 
state, a continued state, in this world and forever here- 
after, of loving God with all the heart and mind and 
strength. This love is perfect, we say, because it is 
pure. Not perfect in degree. I think I love God more 
to-day than I did yesterday. I love him more to-day 
because I have a larger capacity for love, an increasing 
apprehension. One element of our happiness here and 
in the world to come is in our growth and expansion 
and development, so that we shall know more of God, 
and the more we know of him the more we shall love 
him. 

One of the popular objections against the doctrine 
of Christian perfection is that we teach the doctrine 
that God lays a bound before the Christian beyond 
which he cannot go. We do not teach any such doc- 



AN EXPOSITORY SERMON. I9I 

trine. We teach the doctrine of arriving at a state of 
pure love, love that casts out all fear, love that takes 
hold of our enemies and loves them, the very love 
spoken of in the Sermon on the Mount, the very 
love spoken of by Christ when he said, " Be ye there- 
fore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." 
The term perfection is misunderstood. It is a term 
which I used to skip when I was preaching in m^■ 
earlier ministry, because of the opprobrium that has 
attended it. But one day I read this passage : " He 
that is ashamed of me or my words, of him will I be 
ashamed before my Father and his holy angels." I 
said then, I will find out what it means, and I will 
stand by it. This is one of his words. I have given 
you my explanation of it. I do not think it is an ideal 
perfection. It is an attainable one ; one that may be 
wrought in the soul by the power of the Holy Ghost ! 
a perfection we may receive here and now by a sur- 
render of ourselves unto God, and claiming Jesus 
Christ as our wisdom, and righteousness, and sancti- 
fication, and eternal redemption, receiving the Divine 
Spirit for his full work upon our souls, for that work of 
spiritual circumcision of which we have been speaking. 



192 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXXI. 

SPIRITUAL DARKNESS. 

Pastors who closely question their church-members 
find many of them walking in darkness, the natural 
environment of all unbelievers and backsliders. It is 
unnatural for the true believer in Christ. With a double 
negative in the original, he -declares, JoJin 8, 12, **He 
that followeth me shall not [at all] walk in darkness, 
but shall have the light of life." Yet we find in all our 
churches some who are evidently fearing God and work- 
ing righteousness, who diligently use all the means of 
grace, but complain that there is an incertitude about 
their path, and a foreboding that it may not lead to 
heaven's open gate. Sometimes this is the effect of a 
physical cause. I was once asked to help a despairing 
Christian woman into the light. I learned from her 
that after a joyful experience of several years the light 
within had entirely ceased and left her in Egyptian dark- 
ness. *' But why are you here at Clifton Springs 1 " 
said I. '' The plastering fell from the ceiling of my 
schoolroom and struck my head with a concussion that 
has shattered my nerves," was her reply ; " and since 
that hour I have lost my grip upon God, and all sense of 
his favor." I assured her that he loved her now just as 
much as he did before, and that he was telling her so ; 
but that the telephone was so damaged at her end of the 



SPIRITUAL DARKNESS. 193 

line that she did not hear his comforting words. Ten 
years afterwards I met her with health restored and 
walking in the light of the Lord. The receiver had 
been repaired, and the heavenly messages were now 
heard. But in the vast majority of cases where there 
is no bodily disorder, the spiritual desolation and dark- 
ness must be traced to a moral cause : some sin, some 
neglect to obey the Spirit's voice, some culpable igno- 
rance of God's promises, some lack of faith with con- 
sequent loss of love, some unholy temper, or some 
shrinking back from the surrender of every idol as the 
condition of perfect purity of heart, and of the full-orbed 
shining of the Sun of righteousness. 

But others insist that there is another cause of the 
evil under discussion. They assert that it is the will of 
God ; that he often withdraws a sense of his favor arbi- 
trarily for disciplinary ends ; that we derive spiritual 
benefit by these hidings of God ; that spiritual growth 
is the result of the diligent search to find him again ; and 
that alternations of light and darkness in the spiritual 
realm are as healthful as they are in the natural world. 
This was the position of Charles Wesley. In one of his 
poems he teaches that spiritual darkness is sometimes 
an act of divine sovereignty : — 

" Shall man direct the Sovereign God, 
Say he cannot use his rod 

But for some fresh offence? 
From saints he never hides his face, 
Or suddenly their comfort slays, 

To prove their innocence? " 

His brother John insists that this desolate and joyless 
state is because of an eclipse of faith. Hence his ser- 



194 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

mon on the " Wilderness State," in which he proves 
that Christians pass into that state because of their 
unbeHef, just as Israel sinned as the cause of their 
wilderness wanderings. In neither case is there arbi- 
trary allotment. The fixed order of spiritual law has 
been violated, and its sequences are a sense of desertion, 
and a feeling of incertitude and discomfort. Charles 
continues : — 

" Nay, but he casts the righteous down, 
Seems on his beloved to frown, 

Yet smiles their fears to see. 
He hears their oft-repeated cry, 
Why, O my God, my Father, why 

Hast thou forsaken me? " 

To refute his brother's error, John Wesley examines 
his Scripture proofs. The first is 

Isa. I. 10, " Who is among you that feareth the Lord, 
that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in 
darkness, and hath no light } Let him trust in the 
name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." John 
argues very cogently that the character here addressed 
is not in a state of grace, but is under the law, con- 
victed of sin, and trying to be justified by works. An 
awakened sinner has a painful dread of Jehovah, and 
walks in darkness. Penitent faith is the only way out. 
This text contains no proof that a persistent and obe- 
dient believer must sometimes be sovereignly thrust 
into darkness. The next text is Hos. ii. 14, " I will 
allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak 
comfortably to her." ''Hence," says J. W. ''it has 
been inferred that God will bring every believer into the 
wilderness, into a state of deadness and darkness. But 



SPIRITUAL DARKNESS. I95 

it is certain the text speaks no such thing ; for it does 
not appear that it speaks of particular believers at all, 
but of the Jewish nation." The next text is John 
xvi. 22, '' But ye now have sorrow," etc. John Wesley 
well shows that Christ is addressing his apostles only, 
on the theme of his own sorrowful death and joyful res- 
urrection. The whole context proves this. " A little 
while [whilst I am in the tomb] and ye shall not see 
me." Hence their brief sorrow. '' No inference can be 
drawn from hence with regard to God's dealings with 
believers in general." The fourth text is i Pet. iv. 12, 
'' Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery 
trial which is to try you." '' But this is just as foreign 
to the point as the preceding," says J. W., who renders 
the Greek thus : " Wonder not at the burning [martyr- 
dom and its fiery sufferings] which is among you, which 
is for your trial." Says he, "Neither is this text any- 
thing at all to the purpose for which it is cited. And 
we may challenge all men to bring one text, either from 
the Old or New Testament, which is any more to the 
purpose than this." But Charles has hinted at another 
text in the following verse : — 

" Then let the patient, perfect man 
His integrity maintain, 
But not before his God; 
The Lord may crush a sinless saint, 
As once he left his Son to faint 
And die beneath his load." 

To this John makes no reply, for the obvious reason 
that the dereliction of Christ on the cross, in his unique 
atoning sufferings, cannot be logically quoted as a 
proof that God will treat all saints in this way. No 



196 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

man can have any proper fellowship with Christ in the 
atonement. He trod the winepress alone. We have no 
sounding-line long enough to reach the depth of that 
sorrow, which wrung from the Son of God the cry — 

Matt, xxvii. 46, " My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me 1 " Martin Luther, after several hours of 
silent meditation on these words, exclaimed, "God for- 
saken of God ! I cannot understand it." It is certainly 
a great mistake to generalize the Son's abandonment 
on the cross by the Father, and insist that this adum- 
brates the normal experience of all believers. It flatly 
contradicts the promise in Heb. xiii. 5, " I will never 
leave thee, nor forsake thee," fortified by five negatives 
in the Greek, thus : — 

" I'll never, no never, no never forsake." 

We close with a word of apology for the great poet 
of Methodism. His high-strung, delicate, nervous con- 
stitution was subject to depressing, morbid reactions, 
in which he imagined himself forsaken by God, while 
he was as near to him as ever. Charles Wesley took 
his theology more largely from his feelings than did his 
brother, who rebuked this error, saying, '' God does not 
play at bo-peep with his creatures." He insists that 
there are no arbitrary hidings of his countenance for 
our growth in loyalty and holiness ; that joy and sun- 
shine have a far more effectual purifying power than 
gloom and darkness; that light and love go hand in 
hand. Darkness breeds corruption ; light purifies. In 
forming a union with us, God takes the first step ; in 
sundering that union, we take the first step. He never 
sovereignly and causelessly deserts us even for an hour. 



CONSCRIPT CHRISTIANS. 



197 



XXXII. 
CONSCRIPT CHRISTIANS. 

In a recent struggle for a nation's life, when the 
volunteering spirit flagged, a conscription law was en- 
acted. This law was designed to re-enforce the weak 
patriotism of multitudes who shrank from the hard- 
ships and hazards of the camp. The drafted soldiers 
did good service to their country, and their graves are 
honored as highly as the graves where sleep the volun- 
teers. But there was a great difference in the charac- 
ter of the service. The one was spontaneous, free, and 
joyous, while the other was constrained, reluctant, and 
servile. The one felt no hardships, because love knows 
no burdens in the service of its object ; the other, urged 
on by the fear of the law, felt that the knapsack on his 
shoulders weighed a ton. 

The conscript is tormented with the temptation to 
play the poltroon in battle, and to desert his country's 
service. Every day in the camp he counts as a day 
subtracted from the happiness of life. 

The volunteer rushes into the battle with patriotic 
songs, and is brought back on a stretcher mortally 
wounded ; and when he turns his glassy eye, for the last 
time, towards the regimental flag, he thanks God for a 
country worth bleeding and dying for. Let us suppose 



198 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

that the conscript, noting this contrast with shame, 
prays to God for better feelings towards his country, 
and that there suddenly falls upon him a baptism of 
patriotism. His country now stands forth before his 
eyes "the chief est among ten thousand, and the one 
altogether lovely." (Cant. b. 10.) His country's flag 
is no longer the symbol of a hateful despotism which 
has ruthlessly despoiled him of his liberty, but the 
emblem of the sweetest freedom. The temptation to 
desert never comes to him now. If the term for which 
he was drafted should end to-day, he would find a re- 
cruiting officer in an hour and enlist for the whole war, 
bounty or no bounty. So passionately does he love his 
native land that he covets the privilege of fighting till 
the last enemy lays down his arms, and the flag shall 
float over every acre of the redeemed Republic. What 
is this change which has taken place in this soldier ? 
Love, instead of fear, has taken up its abode behind 
his will as the motive of his actions. Love is the 
magical transformer. 

Perfect love casts out all fear.— 1 Jo/m iv. 18. 

The reader may easily conjecture the application of 
this illustration. 

There are in all churches multitudes of Christians 
arrested and pressed into the service of Christ by the 
constraining fear of the law. Though the goodness of 
God is certainly designed to lead men to repentance, it 
so manifestly fails that all successful preachers must 
follow the example of their Master, and proclaim the 
terrors of the law, and point to the drawn sword of 
justice flashing in the skies and ready to fall upon the 
heads of the impenitent. We do not deny that a kind 



CONSCRIPT CHRISTIANS. I99 

of feeble, invertebrate, or backboneless spiritual life 
may exist where only the goodness of God is preached ; 
but for the production of a strong, victorious, spiritual 
life, the law must be our schoolmaster to lead us to 
Christ. {Gal. Hi. 24.) In Greece and Rome a slave 
was detailed, in aristocratic families, to be the paida- 
gogos, or child-leader, whose duty it was to grasp with 
his rough hand the hand of the boy, and lead his un- 
willing feet to the schoolroom. St. Paul asserts that 
this is the office of the law, to be the child-leader to 
bring us to Christ, the great Teacher. 

This beautiful imagery illustrates the point where 
the impelling power of fear is changed to love as the 
motive of Christian service. When the law relaxes its 
grasp we become dead to the law as a motor, and love 
to Jesus, the Lawgiver, takes its place. Now, the diffi- 
culty with many believers is that they do not get out 
of the hand of the child-leader and enter the school of 
Christ. They seem to remain in the vestibule. In 
plain terms, there is somewhat of legality and servility 
in their service. They are in the condition of John 
Wesley during the first eleven years of his ministry ; 
they are servants of God accepted and safe, but have 
not yet received the spirit of adoption by which they 
are assured of their sonship to God and joint heirship 
with Christ. Hence, there is no sunshine in their souls, 
no joyfulness in their service. They serve as under a 
taskmaster. They deny themselves as the law of dis- 
cipleship requires, but they secretly wish this hard re- 
quirement was abolished. They bear the cross much 
as one Simon, who bore the cross of the fainting Christ 
along the via dolorosa, the way of grief, from Pilate's 
hall to the hill of Calvary. They sing : — 



200 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

*' Look, how we grovel here below, 
Fond of these earthly toys; 
Our souls how heavily they go 
To reach eternal joys." 

Some of our hymnologists have made the song still 
worse by altering the last couplet thus : — 

" Our souls can neither fly nor go 
To reach eternal joys." 

A very discouraging condition, indeed, for souls called 
to scale the mount of God, to be destitute of both 
wings and feet, when the promise is, that " they that 
wait upon the Lord shall mount up with wings as 
eagles, and run and not be weary." — Isa. xl. 31. 

The remedy is near at hand and attainable by all. 
It is the fulness of the Spirit coming into the soul 
through simple trust in Jesus Christ, who has promised 
to send the Comforter into the heart of every on^ who 
unswervingly trusts his word. That this is a conscious 
and permanent blessing, we infer from the promise that 
he shall abide forever, and from the assurance given to 
the disciples that they shall know him '' for he shall be 
in you." John xiv. 17. It is the office of this divine 
Comforter to shed abroad the love of God in the heart. 
He will also bring to maturity the fruit of the Spirit, 
— love, joy, peace, etc. This is the grand cure of the 
ailments of the church, that army of the Lord, of 
which, at the present time, the majority belong to the 
invalid corps, and are serving their great Captain, not 
in the field, but in the hospital. 

The only effectual impetus which shall set in motion 
a stationary church fast fettered by worldliness, indif- 



CONSCRIPT CHRISTIANS. 201 

ference, and unbelief, is a pentacostal outpouring. The 
only way that this is to be obtained on a scale which 
shall be felt all through the world, is for each church, 
or group of churches, to gather in one place with one 
accord, and persist in prayer and faith, till the mighty 
effusion is poured down from the opened windows of 
heaven. 



202 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXXIII. 

SEMI-SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANS. 

These are not nominal Christians so plentiful in 
every community, who by some misfortune became 
church-members before they were born again, or who 
began in the spirit, but ended in the flesh, after running 
well for a season. Gal. iii. 3. For it is a misfortune 
for the vine to have a fruitless branch, and to the dry 
branch itself to be in a position where it must be in- 
evitably cut off and cast into the fire. We speak of a 
very large class of disciples who live in the twilight 
instead of the cloudless sunshine, who are in the con- 
dition of the world before the fourth day, when the sun 
was created. Gen. i. 14-19. As there was phospho- 
rescence before the king of day poured his full light 
upon creation, so there is a degree of spiritual illumina- 
tion before the Holy Ghost in full-orbed splendor rises 
upon the believing soul. We can never mingle with 
these Christians without commiserating their condition. 
They see just enough to be afraid. In a mist every- 
thing has a ghostly, spectral, terrific look. They are 
perplexed with doubts and harassed with fears. They 
are in the pre-pentecostal state of weakness and blind- 
ness. There was slight spiritual illumination enjoyed 
by the disciples before the glorified Lord Jesus sent 



SEMI-SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANS. 203 

down the Comforter, They saw men as trees walking, 
as did the half-cured blind man after Jesus had wrought 
an imperfect work upon him ; for the perfect Jesus heals 
souls by stages, as he did this man's eyes, just in ac- 
cordance with their faith. Mark viii. 24. The chief 
objections to the ''higher life," or the conscious abid- 
ing presence of the Sanctifier, come not from the 
totally darkened worldling, whether within the church 
or without, but from these good people whose percep- 
tions of Christian truth respecting the extent of gospel 
salvation under the new covenant are sadly distorted 
by their spiritual ophthalmia. How clearly the apostles 
and the Jerusalem church-members saw, after their 
souls became the habitation of God through the 
Spirit ! Eph. ii. 22. What a rending away of the 
veil of Jewish prejudices! What a clear spiritual in- 
sight to read with ease what had before been enigmati- 
cal and dark ! How the Scriptures opened beneath 
their gaze, the Spirit rendering the dark passages 
transparent, and uncovering mines of richest treasure 
in the open fields which they had trodden a thousand 
times before ! But was not all that miraculous and 
exceptional, designed to give Christianity a good start, 
but never to be repeated after the apostolic age ? 
'' The day of Pentecost was a pattern day ; all the days 
of this dispensation should have been like it, should 
have exceeded it ! But, alas ! the church has fallen 
down to the state in which it was before this blessing 
had been bestowed, and it is necessary to ask Christ to 
begin over again. We, of course, in respect to knowl- 
edge — intellectual knowledge of spiritual things — are 
far in advance of the point where the disciples were 



204 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

before Pentecost. But it should be borne in mind that 
when truths have once been revealed and made a part 
of orthodoxy, the holding of them does not necessarily 
imply an operation of the Spirit of God. We deceive 
ourselves doubtless in this way, imagining that because 
we have the whole Scriptures, and are conversant with 
all its great truths, the Spirit of God is necessarily 
working in us. We need a baptism of the Spirit as 
much as the apostles did at the time of Christ's resur- 
rection." ^ 

It would be a blessed day which should witness the 
descent of the Holy Ghost anew upon the whole Chris- 
tian church. But to ask for this would be to ask for 
uncovenanted grace. For the majority of Christians 
are not in a receptive condition. Vessels must be 
emptied of earth before they can be filled with gold. 
There must be an intense thirst before Jesus will give 
these living waters. Even then there must be an un- 
wavering faith, grasping the following truths : — 

1. That the Spirit of Promise, the Comforter, is a 
person who has a work to do in your soul, after justifi- 
cation, anointing your eyes (Rev. iii. i8), and then re- 
vealing Christ to your astonished spiritual vision. — John 
xvi. 14. 

2. That conversion was the beginning of this work, 
which awaits a more glorious consummation when the 
Sanctifier comes to purify you and to abide in you, 
giving you a spiritual apprehension of Christ and the 
Father. — Acts xv. 9. 

3. That Christianity in respect to the extent of its 
spiritual privileges has not tapered off, but, since the 

^ Love Revealed ; Bowen. 



SEMI-SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANS. 205 

Holy Ghost proceeds from the Omnipotent Father, 
through the ever living Saviour (John xiv. i6), ''yes- 
terday, to-day, and forever the same " (Heb. xiii. 8), 
there must be the same wealth of blessing attainable 
now as in the upper chamber eighteen hundred years 
ago ; and that if there is any change in Christian privi- 
lege, it must increase and not decrease, in accordance 
with the law of progress which runs through all the 
dispensations. 

4. That simple, all-surrendering, persistent faith in 
the promises of Christ is the only condition ; a faith 
that works by love, and a love that shines out through 
obedience. 

5. Reliance on the testimony of those who witness 
to the coming and abiding of the Holy Spirit in their 
hearts, bringing them into a delightful union with 
Christ, though not laid down in the Scriptures as an 
indispensable condition of this great grace, is, neverthe- 
less, very important, inasmuch as its absence indicates 
" hardness of heart and unbelief " as the condition of 
your soul. ''And he upbraided them with their unbe- 
lief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them 
which had seen him after he was risen.'' — Mark xvi. 14. 
The fact that the lives of some who profess to be liv- 
ing on the high table-land of a full trust in Jesus Christ 
do not comport with their lips should no more stumble 
you, than the admitted fact that there are both deceivers 
and deceived who receive the name of Christ in baptism 
should cause you to doubt the divinity of the gospel of 
Christ. There are not a few unimpeachable witnesses 
to a full trust in the blood of Christ, to an incoming 
fulness of love and joy, to the highest serenity of soul. 



206 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

to a deliverance from the power of inward evil impulse, 
to a cleansing from inbred sin, and to the fulness of 
God, the crowning blessing, for which St. Paul prayed 
in Eph. iii. 19. Do not cherish unchristian prejudice 
asfainst these brethren and sisters in the Lord's wit- 
ness-box. Seek their fellowship, heed their counsel, 
enlist their prayers ; for you will find that very many of 
them, in the language of Father Taylor, " are on speak- 
ing terms with God." Their names are known in the 
heavenly courts. Even if your close scrutiny should so 
sift them that they should be reduced from fifty, perad- 
venture to forty-five, and then to forty, to thirty, and 
peradventure to ten, you will find that Christ has not 
left himself without witness in our age, that " he is 
able to save them to the uttermost who come unto God 
by him." This credence given to the testimony of be- 
lievers filled with the Spirit is the starting-point in 
almost every case of successful seeking. This is the 
divinely appointed way of communicating a knowledge 
of this blissful Christ-life hidden within the soul. This 
accounts for the persistence in testimony which is 
thoughtlessly called hobbyism, and is ascribed to men- 
tal narrowness and shallowness, instead of a quenchless 
fire shut up in the bones. Hear them sing : — 

" I love thee so, I know not how 

My transports to control; 

Thy love is like a burning fire 

Within my burning soul," 

Do not be deterred from this fulness of spiritual life 
by the fact that the world has long since pronounced 
every one of its possessors a madman. The world has 



SEMI-SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANS. 20/ 

some good ground for its verdict. A madman is one 
who sees, or thinks he sees, what others see not ; and 
seeing such things walks accordingly. Under the in- 
tense illumination of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit 
abiding with the believer (John xiv. 16-23) ^^ sees 
what the blind world sees not, and shapes his conduct 
in accordance with the heavenly light. Hence, those 
who see not what he sees must think him beside him- 
self, and express their pity that reason has been de- 
throned. If you are unwilling to be an unintelligible 
and sadly misunderstood person in the eye of the world, 
an enigma to your best friends who know not the ex- 
perience of the indwelling spirit, we advise you to wait 
till you have conquered the world in so far as to live 
without its good opinion. By the grace of God the 
thing can be done. ''Be of good cheer," says our 
great representative and exemplar, '* I have overcome 
the world." — John xvi. 33. 

An objection still arises in your mind, my semi- 
spiritual friend, which puzzles and disturbs you. How 
can a person be partly spiritual without being wholly 
spiritual .'' Say you, " I have been born of the Spirit, 
does not that classify me with the spiritual.?" Just as 
Jesus was begotten by the Holy Ghost, and yet had 
the Spirit given him without measure at a later stage 
of spiritual development, after which his life, already 
of the Holy Ghost, took another form in the manifesta- 
tion of that same Spirit, so is the divine life in your 
soul to be deepened and intensified beyond all your 
conception, if you will trust the promises of Jesus. 

The fact that you are by nature depraved, and that 
the taint of original sin inheres even after justification, 



208 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

makes the need of a second work still more imperative. 
If the Christians in Corinth were in one breath styled 
''babes in Christ" and "carnal" (i Cor. iii. i), which 
is far worse than semi-spiritual, may you not be in that 
mixed state of Christian experience in which many 
Christians groan for deliverance ? 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 2O9 



XXXIV. 

THE TEN SPIES— AN EVIL REPORT. 

Numbers xiii. 32. 

There is much more in the Old Testament histories 
than lies on the surface. Without adopting the fanci- 
ful hidden sense read into the Scripture narratives by 
Swedenborg and some extravagant modern typologists, 
we may without peril of dangerous error follow in 
the footsteps of inspired apostles when they assert 
that certain facts in the annals of Israel prefigure 
spiritual experiences in gospel times. St. Paul is cer- 
tainly a sure guide in this matter. In the command, 
" Let there be light," he sees a type of the greater 
Fiat Lux in the heart of the believer, "to give the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ " (2 Cor. iv. 6). In the emer- 
gence of our globe out of chaos into order, beauty, 
and life, he sees a prophecy of a more sublime crea- 
tive art, not in the realm of matter, but in the sphere 
of the human spirit (2 Cor. v. 17). He beautifully 
allegorizes the history of Sarah and Hagar to set 
forth the superiority of love-service to law-service 
(Gal. iv. 21-31). The writer of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, assumed by us to be St. Paul, sets forth 



2IO HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

quite extendedly the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, 
and their wanderings in the desert, and their failure to 
enter into the promised land through unbelief, as a rep- 
resentation of the sad failure of many Christians to 
enter into some great spiritual blessing through their 
feeble grasp of the divine promise (Heb. iv. i-ii). 
Let us first settle the important question. What is 
this great blessing spoken of as the res that re- 
maineth to the people of God ? Some unwisely as- 
sume that Canaan is the type of heaven, and the rest 
which many Christian professors fail to attain is eter- 
nal life in heaven. The logical carrying out of the 
type as thus explained is something dreadful to con- 
template. Of the million of adult Israelites who left 
Egypt but two entered Canaan ; all the rest fell by 
the way under the frown of God. The antitype then 
would be that, of the myriads delivered from bondage 
to sin by pardon and the new birth, only here and 
there one finally attains eternal life. I must not thus 
explain the type of Israel's failure to enter the prom- 
ised land. 

In the third and fourth chapters of Hebrews, St. 
Paul, proceeding upon the maxim that " history is phi- 
losophy teaching by examples," from the failure of 
Israel, urges Christians to press with all earnestness 
into '^ rest." Eleven times does he use the term 
''rest" in the course of a short passage beginning 
with a quotation from Ps. xcv. /-ii, where the word 
"rest" is substituted for ''the land" in Num. xiv. 23. 
The land was to be a type of the rest, not heavenly 
rest, but spiritual rest on earth. For five centuries, 
after enjoying Canaan, David urges the people, "to- 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 211 

day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts," 
evidently pointing them to heart-rest in God. He 
could not have exhorted them to enter into rest in 
heaven, to-day, without urging them to suicide. Joshua 
gave physical, he could not give spiritual, rest. Only 
the greater Joshua can give this supreme soul-rest in 
this life. As God did not rest till he ceased from his 
creative works, so the Christian cannot rest till he 
ceases from his compensative works, vainly wrought as 
an adequate offset for acceptance with God. Faith in 
the great atonement is the only basis for the undis- 
turbed repose of the soul beyond the reach of fears 
and doubts and sins. '* For we which have believed 
do enter into rest." Let us thank God for this present 
tense, ''do enter." Says Dr. Finney, ''The truly be- 
lieving soul rests from its own works. It sees sal- 
vation secured in Jesus Christ, and has no longer any 
motive to legal works. It works not from self nor 
for self ; but its works are from Christ and for Christ. 
He works in the believing soul to will and to do, and, 
having no longer any occasion to work for self, the 
soul delights in rendering to Christ a full-hearted love- 
service. True faith works love, and love does all for 
Christ. Thus the believing soul ceases from its own 
works." Hence it follows, if a soul will fully believe 
in Jesus to-day, it will enter into rest to-day. Again in 
the exhortation, " Let us labor therefore to enter into 
that rest," the original for "labor" is not a word sig- 
nifying long and wearying toil, but it is radically the 
same as that found in the Septuagint version of Joshua 
iv. lo, "and the people hasted and passed over." It 
would be absurd to exhort to hasten into heaven, but 



212 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

quite reasonable to urge the believer to hasten into the 
highest state of grace this side of glory : — 

Since thou wouldst have us free from sin, 

And pure as those above, 
Make haste to bring thy nature in, 

And perfect it in love. 

We find no scriptural ground for making Canaan a 
type of heaven and Jordan the type of death. The love 
of Christ fully shed abroad in the heart by the Holy 
Spirit is the true Canaan, and death unto sin through 
entire sanctification, as the instantaneous deliverance 
from sin with power then imparted always to cleave 
unto God, is the believer's Jordan. This is the blessed 
rest to which Jesus invites laboring souls. Wisely in- 
deed does the great poet of Methodism sing, — 

" Lord, I believe a rest remains 

To all thy people known; 
A rest where pure enjoyment reigns, 

And thou art loved alone. 
A rest where all our souls' desire 

Is fixed on things above ; 
Where fear, and sin, and grief expire, 

Cast out by perfect love. 
O that I now this rest might know. 

Believe and enter in ! 
Now Saviour, now the power bestow 

And let me cease from sin." 

C. Wesley. 

God's ideal of Israel's possible future was a trustful 
and obedient nation marching in two or three months 
straight from Mount Sinai into Canaan by the way of 
Kadesh-Barnea, after they had received the Decalogue 
and had been sufficiently instructed in the Levitical 



THE TEN SPIES — AN EVIL REPORT. 213 

law. They would be victorious in every battle, and 
in a very short time would exterminate every foe 
out of the land. What would Canaan typify in this 
ideal ? A Christian experience well grounded in a 
knowledge of the law, the basis of the atonement which 
is the only measure of sin, advancing by rapid strides 
into a rest undisturbed by inward enemies, a rest 
from harassing doubt and tormenting fear, a rest filled 
with ever-increasing assurance, gladness, and strength. 
How different the picture of actual Israel through 
their perverse distrust of God and rebellion ! See 
them rejected by him whose covenant they had broken, 
wandering wearily in the wilderness thirty-nine sad 
years in weakness, uncheered by hope, and doomed 
to die beneath the ban of that very God who longed 
to show himself strong in their behalf, if they had 
maintained their trust in him, and thus presented a 
character worthy of such interposition. They are still 
the people of the Abrahamic covenant. They are 
not as a nation cast off forever ; but the blessings of 
the covenant are withdrawn, and they are shut out 
from the joyful sense of the divine favor. Alas ! 
that this should mirror the sorrowful condition of 
many real Christians, who will doubtless be saved so 
as by fire. They have been delivered from the guilt 
of sin, their Egyptian taskmaster ; through faith in the 
blood of Jesus, the Paschal Lamb, they have crossed 
the Red Sea of repentance, and have entered upon 
newness of life with the glorious possibility of per- 
fect triumph over all their foes and a speedy settle- 
ment in perfect love ; but, distrusting the ability of 
their great Leader, they falter and fail and grovel 



214 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

for years, and even scores of years, pitiable weak- 
lings instead of conquering heroes. 

The first indication of the paralysis of unbelief in 
Israel is their desire to send spies to ascertain whether 
God had told them the truth on two interesting points ; 
first, Is Canaan worth conquering.'* and secondly, Is God 
able to conquer it through our agency ? From the nar- 
rative in Num. xiii., we might infer that the scheme of 
sending the spies originated with Moses as guided by 
Jehovah ; but his command, as found in Deut. i. 21, 22, 
was "fear not, neither be discouraged." What was 
the reply of the people to these brave words of faith ? 
" And ye came near unto me every one of you, and 
said, we will send men before us, and they shall 
search us out the land, and bring us word again by 
what way we must go up." As if God did not know 
the way, and they must help him find it ! Here is 
the primal error, this miserable business of the spies. 
If they had unwaveringly trusted God, they would 
never have sent the twelve spies. For Jehovah had 
assured them that the land flowed with milk and 
honey, and that he would drive out all their ene- 
mies, if they would go bravely forward and fight be- 
neath his banner. How strangely like this is the 
conduct of many Christians. Christ reveals to them 
the Canaan of perfect holiness of heart, and sends 
his Holy Spirit to bring them in and establish them 
there forever. But instead of perfect confidence in 
this wonderful revelation and an unwavering reliance 
on the Divine Sanctifier, multitudes, yielding to a secret 
distrust of Christ's word and the cleansing efficacy of 
his blood, demand to see somebody who has been 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 21 5 

there ; and they immediately send out a gang of spies 
whose names are Philosophy and Speculation and In- 
vestigation and Caution and Hesitation and Suspense 
and Suspicion and Uncertainty and Distrust and 
Doubt, whose surname is Thomas. This sorry set 
of spies is sent out to explore the land of Christian 
Perfection, and report whether Christ tells the truth 
about it and about the possibility of entering into it 
at once, when he commands his disciples to be per- 
fect in love (Matt. v. 43-48). It does not take a 
prophet to tell beforehand what their report will be, 
" There are no perfectly holy men but dead ones." 
See that ye fail not after the same example of un- 
belief. Depravity naturally hates holiness, even that 
which still lingers after the new birth. There are 
animals born with an instinctive knowledge of their 
enemies. The young partridge, just out of its shell, 
will skulk and hide under the leaves at the first sight 
of a hawk ; the mouse runs into its hole the first time 
he sees a cat ; and the little kitten, before his eyes 
are open, will spit and curve his little back when a 
hand that has just touched a dog is placed near his 
nose. Slavery had an instinctive dread of liberty, 
and raised a bloody rebellion at the very thought of 
the possible supremacy of freedom. The flesh which 
lusteth against the Spirit, even in the hearts of be- 
lievers, in their initial regenerate experience, shrinks 
back from the very words " sanctify you wholly," 
'' cleansing from all sin," and raises up all sorts of 
doctrinal, scriptural, and philosophical objections and 
practical difficulties. The real difficulty is the heart's 
unwillingness to be crucified with Christ. This dis- 



2l6 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

relish for evangelical perfection in young Christians 
is greatly intensified by the indifferent or hostile at- 
titude of the older and more influential. A majority 
of Israel's leaders — for the spies were all princes of 
their tribes — reported adversely to marching imme- 
diately into Canaan. That report manufactured un- 
belief by the wholesale among the common people in 
the camp. '•' Our great and wise men say that we 
cannot conquer and cast out the Canaanites. It must 
be so, if our leaders say so." The detailed report 
of the ten cowardly spies is unfortunately lost. It 
would be interesting and instructive to read just 
what each said. But, perhaps, by a diligent study 
of the account and a judicious use of our imagina- 
tions, we can introduce these individual reports as 
they fell from their lips. Their names, who can call ? 
If any one whom I am addressing can from memory 
speak one of them, let him arise and pronounce that 
name. We all know the two names attached to the 
minority report. The believing spies have written 
their imperishable names on the hearts of all the 
generations. God has embalmed them in the mem- 
ories of all good men. In every Jewish and Christian 
age children are proud of the names Caleb and Joshua ; 
and when the Son of God stooped down from the skies 
to become the Son of Mary, the heroic name of Jesus, 
the Greek of Joshua, was found to be the fittest name 
for the Lord of glory to wear among men. But no 
children are named after the ten spies: — 

"Cancelled from heaven and sacred memory, 
Nameless in dark oblivion let them dwell." 



THE TEN SPIES — AN EVIL REPORT. 21/ 

Yet God has put their names on record. In Num. 
xiii. they stand in the pillory of sacred history for the 
reproach and scorn of mankind. " Of every tribe of 
their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler 
among them." 

The tribe of Reuben was represented in the explor- 
ing expedition by Prince Shammua. It is easy to re- 
produce his report from the general characteristics of 
his tribe as discerned by the keen sagacity or super- 
natural insight of dying Jacob : *' Unstable as water, 
thou shalt not excel." Indecision marks all the Reu- 
benites. Their spy being called on first, not knowing 
on which side the majority will be, finds himself in a 
difficult position. He is averse to committing himself. 
He has a good opinion of the land as every way desir- 
able ; but he fears that he shall get the name of a 
radical and a fanatic, if he should boldly say, " We 
ought to march straight into it without a day's delay." 
That will not sound well. " I must look to my reputa- 
tion. A good name is better than great riches." So, 
after praising the country, he says that on the practical 
question of immediate conquest he has not yet made 
up his mind. " I prefer to announce my views after 
my brother spies have reported. You may reckon me 
on the side of the majority when I find out what it is." 
A good type of a Christian lacking independence, posi- 
tiveness, and inflexible firmness in standing on his 
convictions. If he is a layman, he is always taking his 
religious beliefs at second hand from his influential 
brethren; if he is a preacher, he inquires for what he 
may enjoy, profess, and preach, not in God's word, 
illumined by the Holy Ghost within him, but in the 



215 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

last debate of the Preachers' Meeting or Ministerial 
Club to which he belongs. Oh, for vertebrate men 
and women whose beliefs have become experiences, 
who have gotten hold of truth so precious that they 
are willing to suffer the loss of all things rather than 
to sell it out for human applause! (John v. 44.) Prince 
Shaphat of the tribe of Simeon next arises before the 
hushed assembly and expresses his view of the critical 
situation : '' I cannot deny the excellence of the land. 
It is fertile, pleasant, and healthy. Just see this mam- 
moth cluster of grapes and the enormous figs and 
pomegranates surpassing in both size and quality any- 
thing Egypt can produce. But — but — the people are 
more numerous than we. The odds are heavily against 
us. In my reading of history, I have discovered the 
important fact that the strongest battalions always 
win. It is best to take a sober, rational, and common- 
sense view of this matter, and consider it in proper 
military style. Numbers must decide in the long run. 
That is a very fanatical view which has gained some 
adherents in our camp, that five of us shall chase a 
hundred, and a hundred put ten thousand to flight. I 
stamp that sentiment as exceedingly visionary and 
perilous, if it should become so general as to shape our 
policy, and thrust us, all unprepared, into deadly con- 
flict with these seven mighty nations. I counsel delay, 
till we have become stronger and our foes have grown 
weak. I have no good opinion of this foolish reliance 
on the supernatural. If we beat our foes, we must 
trust alone in our own muscle." 

Here is the type of the naturalistic Christian ! How 
strange a combination of words, in view of the facts of 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 219 

a miraculous gospel history, and of the spread of Chris- 
tianity against such tremendous odds arrayed against 
it by Judaism and Paganism, by learning, wealth, and 
power, by imperial persecutions, and brutal mobs. 
Yet we live in a day when myriads wear the name 
of Christ, the Wonderful, from whose faith the su- 
pernatural has entirely evaporated. The naturalistic 
Christian may be known by his little faith in sudden 
conversions, and instantaneous sanctifications, and bap- 
tisms of the Spirit, and in discouraging efforts to 
promote sweeping revivals of religion. If the exact 
census of Christendom should be taken, we fear that 
a wide column would be filled with this class of pro- 
fessed Christians. 

Prince Igal of the tribe of Issachar is now eager to 
report : *^ I bear witness to the truth of the old descrip- 
tion of the land which had so delicious a sound around 
our cradles and in the brickyards of Egypt. It is a 
land which fioweth with milk and honey. 

'' Being of antiquarian turn of mind, I recall that I saw 
in Egypt the records of Rameses II. chiselled in stone. 
That great king brought back from Canaan, he tells 
us, gold, glass, gums, cattle, male and female slaves, 
ivory, ebony, boats laden with all good things, horses, 
chariots inlaid with gold and silver, goblets, dishes, 
iron, steel, dates, oil, wine, asses, cedar, suits of armor, 
fragrant wood, war galleys, incense, gold dishes with 
handles, collars and ornaments of lapis lazuli, silver 
dishes, vases of silver, precious stones, honey, goats, 
lead, spears of brass, colors, beer, bread, geese, fruit, 
milk, pigeons — the plunder, in fact, of a rich and 
civilized country. The meadows of Palestine, its fort- 



220 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

resses, its groves, and its orchards, are mentioned, 
showing that prosperity of every kind abounded. It 
is no savage nor unoccupied region, therefore, that is 
to be conquered by us, but a land strongly defended, 
full of people, and provided with all appliances for 
resistance. Nor is it without marked culture, for 
its libraries gave a name to some of its cities. But, 
nevertheless, in my reconnoissance of that interesting 
country, I was alarmed at the extraordinary stature of 
the people. They actually stand seven and eight feet 
high in their stockings. Our party of spies — you see 
that we are good-sized men — were as grasshoppers in 
their sight, and we felt like grasshoppers in our own 
sight. There is no use of attempting to cope with a 
race of demigods. It would be worse than a crime, 
it would be a blunder, for us pygmies to rush madly 
against a host of giants. Pause ! Pause, fellow He- 
brews ! before you rush headlong into a position where 
a battle will be certain defeat, or a retreat a na- 
tional disgrace or a national extinction. Meanwhile 
we are very comfortably off where we are : we have 
abundant cool, sweet water out of the rock, and 
bread rained daily upon the camp ; and though the 
manna is rather flat to my taste, yet it is much better 
than nothing. I think we can very profitably spend 
a score or more of years here reflecting on the great- 
ness of our deliverance from the yoke of Pharaoh. 
This eagerness to press forward to the land of promise 
indicates a lack of appreciation of the great emancipa- 
tion of our nation. We ought not to forget this glori- 
ous event, as we evidently are forgetting, in our haste 
to push forward. There is something wrong in that 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 221 

song I have been pained to hear everlastingly resound- 
ing along the column as we have followed the pillar of 
cloud. 

* Forget the steps already trod, 
And onward urge your way.' 

**We should hold the past in grateful memory, and 
magnify our abundant present blessings, and not dwarf 
them down by contrasting them with some great ima- 
ginary blessings in Canaan. In fact, we are already in 
Canaan as much as we ever shall be. This I can prove 
from Jehovah's own word in Ex. xxiii. 31, 'I will 
set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea 
of the Philistines.' We stepped into Canaan when we 
came up out of the Red Sea and set our feet upon the 
eastern shore. The great miracle is already past. 
God does only one great work for any nation. He 
does not deliver piecemeal. Yes, we are already in 
the promised land; though things are rather rough 
here, and not quite up to our expectation and God's 
promise. We have had too rose-colored anticipations. 

' 'Twas distance lent enchantment to our view.' 

'* We shall be acting wisely to tone down our expecta- 
tions to harmonize with our surroundings. Things will 
gradually improve as we get used to the climate and 
better acquainted with the inhabitants. We must rely 
on natural processes, — growth, education, refinement, 
and the softening effects of the fine arts. Let us move 
slowly and steadily forward with no more such spasms 
like our deliverance from Egypt. Spasms indicate 
weakness and not robust health." 



222 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

Many a Christian secretly confesses that his experi- 
ence is not what he expected when he embraced Christ. 
He does not find complete satisfaction in him. But 
when told to go forward into the goodly land of full 
salvation how strangely he acts ; he looks round him 
for proofs that there is no better experience, and he 
takes a kind of sad delight in dragging down the rich 
promises of God to his own meagre realization. With 
such half-starved and stationary Christians the church 
is overstocked. 

Palti, a prince of Benjamin, now takes the platform, 
and in a loud voice says, " My brethren, the land can- 
not be too highly praised. It is surpassingly excellent. 
Its valleys are fat with olives, and all you have to do 
with its terraced hills is ' to tickle them with a hoe 
and they will laugh into a harvest.' But I looked 
upon the land with the eye of a soldier and strategist. 
I observed that all the strong positions, the key points, 
are already occupied by our enemies. Their cities are 
stupendous fortresses crowning every high hill. Na- 
ture and art have made them absolutely impregnable. 
Why, you will scarcely believe me when I soberly say 
that their walls tower up into the very heavens. It 
is sheer presumption to think of dashing our heads 
against such munitions as these. I do not believe that 
the command to throw ourselves against these impreg- 
nable walls has been rightly interpreted. It is evi- 
dently figurative. It means that we are to contend 
against them with the arts of diplomacy, and to outwit 
them in statecraft, by and by, when we shall have 
reached a higher intellectual and political status. There 
must, of course, be treaties of peace, then we will get 



THE TKN SFIES AN EVIL Ri:r()RJ'. 223 

the best of these bargains, and reduce them to serfdom, 
and make them pay tribute to us. There must be 
some mistake about that command of an universal ex- 
termination. Why, the very thought is horrible ! The 
banishment or destruction of every one of these seven 
civilized nations ! The thing is without precedent in 
the annals of mankind. We cannot hope for anything 
better than a gradual melting of the two peoples into 
one nationality, Canaan taking on circumcision and our 
Abraham ic covenant, while we meet them half-way by 
giving up our clannish exclusiveness and bigotry, our 
groundless prejudice against the Gentiles, and our over- 
nice rules of diet. I advise that we begin this process 
of assimilation as soon as possible. Let us immedi- 
ately send a flag of truce and enter into peaceable 
treaty relations. By this means we shall lift our rude 
nation into cultivation, refinement, and wealth ; for 
these Canaanites, as Prince Igal has just said, are pol- 
ished, cultured, and rich, being of the same race with 
the great city of Tyre. Our sturdy Hebrew strength 
united with their eleo-ance and taste will make a nation 

o 

both heroic and splendid." 

Many Christians think that the best way to conquer 
the world is to become just like it. Thus did not the 
Son of man, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and 
separate from sinners, whose all-conquering moral power 
lies in his unlikeness to the world in spotless character. 

Gaddiel, a prince of Zebulun, now speaks : " Sons 
of Abraham, the beauty and fertility of the land ex- 
ceeds all the upreachings of man's imagination. It is 
beyond our most glowing dreams. It is a land worth 
fighting valiantly for, when we get fully ready. For it 



224 



HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



is folly for us to push headlong in our present unpre- 
pared condition. We lack military drill. We have had 
no experience in war except in a little skirmish at Rep- 
hidim near Mount Sinai. We need arms. For gen- 
erations we have been in bondage. Slaves are never 
permitted to own arms. We must make arms by build- 
ing forges and smelting iron and copper, which abound 
here in this wilderness. We must first get our mate- 
rials, and then train our armorers to make shields, 
swords, spears, and battle-axes ; for it will not do to 
depend on so rude an arm as the sling in besieging 
walled cities. To put ourselves in fighting order will 
take years. Discretion is the better part of valor. 
When we have a good military outfit you shall hear my 
voice for war, but not till then." 

You will find many Christians of this procrastinat- 
ing sort, distrusting God's promise of present com- 
plete salvation, and waiting in idleness for strength, 
which comes only through activity begotten of faith 
in God. 

The vast audience of Israelites crowd near to the 
stand as Gaddi, a prince of Manasseh, stands up to 
report: "Hear, O Israel! if I were a painter I might 
transfer to your minds some idea of the indescribable 
loveliness and richness of Canaan. I hope to dwell 
amid its matchless charms, at least in my old age. For 
I see that its conquest is a work of many, many years. 
Although we are Hebrews, the chosen nation, we are 
human nevertheless, and we must proceed by the his- 
toric methods which have ended in success. We are 
a single nation marching against a strong confederacy 
of seven nations. We have no allies. It will be wise 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 225 

for US to form alliances with neighboring nations, and 
thus to multiply our strength. This will take time. 
This is the most reasonable course. The possession 
of reason argues that we should use it, and not go 
blindfold into battle and be butchered like sheep. 
What some people call faith I brand as sheer presump- 
tion. In addition to small arms, a want mentioned by 
my brother prince, we must have battering-rams, cata- 
pults, ballistas, and all the ponderous enginery of war- 
fare. This will take more time." 

Here is a type of the conservative Christian pleading 
for more and more time in which to get ready to be 
victorious over his spiritual foes within, not by a deci- 
sive battle, a crushing victory, secured by almighty 
power, but by a kind of easy human gradualism, which 
never comes to a deadly clinch with the foe within the 
heart. 

Listen now to Ammiel, prince of Dan : " Children 
of Israel, enough has been said about the excellence of 
other people's land. What benefit is to come to our 
nation by aggravating them with descriptions of a 
country which they will never inhabit. Conquest by 
us is absolutely impossible. Our great-grandchildren 
may develop strength enough to drive out the Canaan- 
nites, should Israel hold together so long as a nation. 
I, for my part, am bold to say that we made a big mis- 
take when we left Egypt, the great granary of the 
world, the centre of learning, the mother of the arts, 
and the fountain of religion. Although our liberties 
were somewhat curtailed there, we were tolerably well 
off under the protection of a strong government. I 
wish that we were well back again. As it is now, we 



226 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

are just nowhere. We are neither luxuriating in the 
vineyards of Canaan, nor drinking the sweet, cool 
waters of the Nile. We are just living from hand to 
mouth, rovdng about in this wilderness, with no chance 
to lay up anything for more than twenty-four hours 
ahead, and that, a little insipid manna. I confess 
that when I turn my eyes northward toward the 
Promised Land, I see only thunder-clouds of appalling 
blackness. The idea of our immediate conquest of that 
confederacy of strong and warlike nations on their own 
soil, where they will fight like tigers for their altars 
and their fires, and the sepulchres of their sires, is the 
greatest absurdity of the age. It is time this humbug 
was exploded, and the true state of the facts was made 
known to this easily duped multitude. I say, let us 
take the back track to Egypt. For this state of being 
nowhere I do not enjoy. Since the olive groves of 
Canaan are out of the question, let us sit down once 
more by the flesh-pots of Egypt. It does not pay to 
seek the land of rest." 

There were, doubtless, in the Jewish Church in the 
wilderness, discouraged and despairing members an- 
noyed by any witnesses favorable to Canaan exhibiting 
the clusters of Eshcol. Such persons were finding little 
enjoyment in their mixed and wilderness experience, 
and were inclined to abandon a joyless, unsatisfactory, 
and irksome service and return to hopeless eternal 
bondage. Because a Canaan of perfect soul-rest is not 
pointed out to Christians — or if pointed out is re- 
garded as unattainable — they turn back to a life of 
sin. Love unmixed, and therefore perfect, enjoyed 
or earnestly sought is the divine safeguard against 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 22/ 

backsliding. When filled with the Holy Spirit we may 
jubilantly sing : — 

*' Creatures no more divide my choice; 
I bid them all depart : 
His name, his love, his gracious voice, 
Have fixed my roving heart." 

The tribe of Asher now puts forward its prince, 
Sethur, one of the far-famed explorers. *' Hebrew 
brethren, I indorse all that has been gaid in praise of 
Canaan. But it gives me great pain of heart to pro- 
claim without reserve my honest convictions. There 
are invincible obstacles to the conquest of the land of 
promise. Others have spoken of the vast number and 
gigantic stature of the foe, their impregnable walls, and 
closely cemented alliance, our feebleness, lack of mili- 
tary drill and arms. But there is another drawback 
to which it is my painful duty to allude. Moses and 
Aaron are excellent men. I do not wish to utter a 
word which shall detract from their influence, but I 
suppose I shall be telling no news when I say that 
there is a growing distrust of their capacity for leader- 
ship. Their haste to rush instantly into deadly conflict, 
trusting that Jehovah himself will descend from heaven 
and work miracles for us on the battle-field, routing our 
foes, betrays so much fanaticism that a widespread dis- 
trust of their guidance has already sprung up in the 
camp; and the popular enthusiasm which once loudly 
shouted, " On to Canaan," has visibly declined. We 
have not heard this shout for several days. We do not 
regret the change, for the cry had become distasteful 
to us ; but it shows the waning influence of those two 



228 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

sons of Levi who have usurped the leadership of Israel. 
I recommend that we bring our minds to the idea of a 
rather protracted stay where we are, making ourselves 
as comfortable as possible, while we wait to see whether 
something favorable will not happen. Confidence in 
our leaders may be restored ; the popular enthusiasm 
may revive. The Canaanites may die off of a pesti- 
lence without our risking our necks to kill them in 
battle. By no means should we advance another step. 
It is the height of presumption that we have come thus 
far." 

Well would it be if the Jewish Church were the only 
one cursed with cowardly members distrustful, of all 
who urge them forward into complete victory over foes 
within their own hearts. The chief work that these 
do is to put the brakes on the chariot-wheels of King 
Jesus while it is laboring up the hill, and to predict 
that the trusty horses tugging with all their might at 
the traces will run away with it, and smash it all to 
pieces. 

Nahbi, prince of Naphtali, now mounts the stand : 
" My beloved brethren in Israel, all twelve of us spies 
agree that Canaan is a splendid country. But war is 
horrid and barbarous. I am for peace at any sacrifice. 
If we advance, picture to yourselves the streaming 
blood, the ghastly wounds, the wailing widows, the 
sobbing orphans, the smoking cities, and the desolated 
homes if we should triumph ; and the appalling disaster, 
if we should be worsted in the fight, with no fortifica- 
tions, no walled towns, no base of supplies, to fall back 
upon, nothing in our rear but enraged Amalekites em- 
bittered by their former defeat. Should we advance 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 229 

one day's march, we should precipitate a decisive battle. 
It does not require great military experience to predict 
the result. We should certainly be disastrously beaten. 
I advise that we avoid the strain and struggle, the 
sacrifice and slaughter of hard-fought battles, by mak- 
ing a treaty of peace, that our policy of conquest be 
effected by gradually colonizing the land, and slowly 
proselyting its inhabitants to Judaism by exhibiting 
the superiority of our style of civilization. In fact, I 
think that the Canaanites are a very nice people, who 
have been grossly slandered by the traditions which 
have come down to us from the patriarchs, or they have 
made marvellous progress since our father, Jacob, so- 
journed among them, and even then they only annoyed 
the old gentleman a very little by filling up some of 
his wells. They are evidently a people too good to be 
butchered ; they have a capacity for high religious 
culture. We spies walked in the daylight from end to 
end of their land in perfect safety. They offered us no 
violence. Then, again, I am jealous for my nation's 
reputation. I do not wish that we should get the name 
of a race of filibusters, a horde of land pirates and free- 
booters ; a name which the whole world will fasten upon 
us as an indelible stigma, if we oust these peaceable 
Canaanites from their rightful possessions. Let us 
have peace." 

Did you ever see the portrait of a sentimental reli- 
gionist ? Here it is. His outgushing sympathies are a 
current so strong that they bear him into positive dis- 
obedience to God. He so highly prizes his inward 
spiritual foes that he would not have one of them sud- 
denly slain. His own reputation also is too good to 



230 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

risk in a course of unquestioning, whole-hearted, down- 
right obedience to God. What will people say.'' 

The last of the ten spies is quite nervous with desire 
to speak. Geuel, a prince of Gad, takes the stand : 
" How happy should I be, fellow Israelites, if my judg- 
ment could recommend an immediate movement against 
the enemies' works. But I must be candid, and not let 
my heart run away with my head. In addition to all 
the objections brought forward by my nine honorable 
colleagues, I would mention two which have made a 
deep impression on my mind. First, the Hittites are 
abundantly supplied with splendid horses and war- 
chariots against which we cannot cope. Secondly, I 
find in my studies in history that mighty Assyria in the 
pride of her power once conquered this very country, 
but failed to retain her dominion over it. Many years 
ago Egypt subdued these nations and took Kedesh, 
their capital city, and they arose after a short time and 
threw off the Egyptian yoke. In our explorations as 
spies we found monuments of both the Assyrian and 
Egyptian conquests. The disheartening inference is, 
— and I sigh as I give it utterance, — we could not 
retain possession even if we should conquer Canaan. 
Therefore, we should not waste our blood and treas- 
ure, and risk our reputation for an advantage so un- 
certain." 

The report of this spy is a mirror in which many a 
Christian can see himself. Hear him think aloud : " I 
will not aspire to the Alpine heights of grace, because 
some one has fallen therefrom. If I should obtain that 
pearl of pearls, the love which casts out all fear, some 
pickpocket of an adversary may slyly rob me of my 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 23 1 

treasure. So I will remain in spiritual poverty. Bur- 
glars do not molest paupers." 

Shammua, the first spy, is now ready to make his 
report. He has found out on which side the majority 
is, and he is now ready to give the policy of delay a 
hearty indorsement. He now regrets that he did not 
say so at the first, for this was his cowardly opinion all 
the time. 

No wonder that all the congregation lifted up their 
voices and cried, and the people wept that night : 
" Would God that we had died in Egypt, or would God 
we had died in this wilderness ! Were it not better for 
us to return into the land of Egypt. Let us make a 
captain and return." But hold 1 two of the spies have 
not reported. What are they doing ? They are rend- 
ing their garments in grief and righteous indignation 
at this cowardly report, in which the name of Jehovah, 
their great ally, is not even mentioned, who had con- 
quered stubborn Pharaoh, and overwhelmed his hosts 
in the Red Sea, who had thundered on Sinai, and 
walked before Israel in pillar of cloud and pillar of fire, 
and who had promised to drive out their enemies in 
complete conquest, if Israel would obey him. 

Now the two believing spies lift up their voices to 
stem the tide of infidelity which is surging through the 
camp and ingulfing all their hopes in the irretrievable 
ruin. '' The land is an exceeding good land. If Jeho- 
vah delight in us, then will he bring us into this land, 
and give it us ; a land which floweth with milk and 
honey. Only rebel not against the Lord, neither fear 
ye the people of the land ; for they are bread for us : 
their defence is departed from them, and Jehovah is 



232 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

with US : fear them not." Here is courage. Here is 
insight into the real weakness of all God's foes. True 
faith is the best philosophy. Faith by its very exist- 
ence and manifestation is a rebuke to unbelief. Cour- 
age is always a censure of cowardice. Hence, it was 
natural that the people bade stone them with stones. 
The side that has the weakest foothold in reason, right, 
and truth is always the first to resort to violence. But 
brave Caleb begs the privilege of saying one word. And 
he stilled the people, and said, " Let us go up at once 
and possess it ; for we are well able to overcome it." 
At onccj without one hour's delay, for we have Jehovah 
with us enthroned in the very centre of our camp ; at 
once, despite the superior numbers, and gigantic stat- 
ure, and better military preparation of our united 
foes ; at once, despite the noise and confusion of a 
battle and garments rolled in blood ; at once, for '^ For- 
ward" is our Great Captain's order, and it is always 
perfectly safe to obey God. These heroic words of 
Caleb, worthy to be inscribed in gold on his tombstone 
and to be read by all nations and generations forever, 
received, methinks, this scornful reply from the ten ; 
" Away with you, you have been riding this hobby ever 
since we left Egypt ; morning, noon, and night we have 
heard your favorite theme till we are heartily sick of it. 
We tell you we are not able, just now, to go up against 
the people, for they are stronger than we. We object 
to this immediateness, this instantaneousness ; it is un- 
natural and unreasonable. Conquest must be gradual. 
We must expel our foes by our growth, little by little 
crowding them out. This will be much better than 
risking a decisive battle in which we may lose all." 



THE TEN SPIES — AN EVIL REPORT. 233 

You know the sequel. The anger of Jehovah was 
kindled. He would have smitten them with a pes- 
tilence, all the people as one man, if Moses had not 
stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath. 
Though he did not destroy them on the spot, yet he 
said, "As truly as I live all those men who have seen 
my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in 
the wilderness, and have tempted me ten times, and 
have not hearkened to my voice, surely they shall not 
see the land which I swear unto their fathers. But my 
servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, 
and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the 
land; and his seed shall possess it." Here is God's 
opinion of those who follow him fully, and of those 
who oppose an immediate, total, irreversible self-sur- 
render to him for instantaneous and entire sanctification 
through the provisions of the atonement as adminis- 
tered by the Holy Spirit. For says St. Paul, " These 
things happened unto them for examples : and they are 
written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the 
world [R. v., ages] are come." In this age there is a 
minority who are preaching and testifying God's ability 
instantaneously to stay our inward foes and to bring 
every believer into the state of rest from inbred sin. 
If you believe this in your inmost soul, you are a 
Caleb whom God will soon bring in. But if you in- 
wardly disrelish this doctrine, and are quite content 
with your mixed wilderness life, and are satisfied with 
a philosophy of your own in opposition to revelation, 
God will let you wander all your days and die in the 
desert at last. 

Let z^s also fear lest a promise being left 7^s of enter- 



234 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

ing into his rest, any of you young converts, any of you 
veterans, any of you Christian workers, Sunday-school 
teachers, deacons, class-leaders, or preachers, should 
seem to come short. For unto them was the gospel 
preached as well as unto us, but it was not mixed with 
faith. There is a Canaan before every Christian, to be 
attained in the present life if he will credit the promise 
of Christ. I speak of perfect love, or evangelical per- 
fection, in which Adamic depravity is destroyed root 
and branch through the Holy Spirit, whose sanctifying 
office is secured through the efficacy of the blood of 
Jesus Christ : — 

" Thy blood shall over all prevail, 
And sanctify the unclean; 
The grace that saves the soul from hell, 
Will save from present sin." 

On the possibility of the whole church moving 
promptly forward and entering in and dwelling per- 
manently in the land of holiness, there are two kinds of 
reports, — the majority, who see the giants and shrink 
back like frightened children ; and the minoritv, who 
see the same terrible giants, but thev see also the al- 
mighty giant-killer, with his drawn sword ready to be- 
head them at a single blow. It is said that the Federal 
Army of the Potomac was for several days kept from 
assaulting a strong redoubt on their way to Richmond 
by an array of great guns looking defiantly at them. 
The guns were just like those which Satan uses to 
keep Christians from capturing the spiritual Canaan 
of rest ; they were Quaker guns, — logs bored and 
blackened to imitate cannon. 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 235 

Every Christian is believing one of these reports. If 
he believes the majority report on the impracticability 
of attaining perfect purity in the present world, he is 
settling down in a wilderness life, and has ceased to 
strive to enter in at the strait gate of entire sanctifica- 
tion. In this case, grace is attempting the impossible 
task of living on neighborly terms with the family of 
original sin, occupying another apartment of the same 
house. Or he is believing the minority report, and 
has either already been allotted his portion by his great 
Joshua in the spiritual land of promise, or he is ur- 
ging his way thither. My only justification for my ear- 
nest advocacy of this advanced and victorious Christian 
experience is that the salvation of the church and her 
aggressive power lie in her eminent spirituality, dead- 
ness to the world, and testimony by life and lip to 
Christ's uttermost salvation from sin, not in her rich 
men, her fine churches, her high social position, her 
millions of members, and her hundreds of seminaries 
and colleges. These are good things for Christianity 
to have, but bad to lean upon. These are not the 
hidings of her all-conquering power : — 

"Thanks to thy name for meaner things, 
But they are not my God," 

There are several important inferences to be made. 

I. The question of faith in God is the test question 
of every age, God's perpetual touch-stone of character, 
the hinge of probation, and the pivot of destiny. 
" What must we do, that we may work the works of 
God ? " To this inquiry of the Jews, Jesus answered, 
" This is the work of God which he requires, that ye 



236 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

believe on him whom he hath sent." That through 
faith in Christ we have forgiveness is among evangeli- 
cal Christians an easily accepted truth. It is so ele- 
mentary that with believers it has lost its testing- 
power. Beyond and above this is the truth, that the 
gospel contains a power to purge human nature of its 
vileness, to wash out even the old Adamic principle of 
sin, and to make the soul whiter than snow. This 
doctrine affords the Christian a test of faith, as the 
doctrine of forgivness tests the faith of the penitent 
seeker. Hearer, do you abide this higher test, or does 
your faith break down under it as did that of the ten 
spies ? 

2. The fact that we are God's people delivered out of 
Egyptian bondage to sin by faith in the blood of Christ, 
our Passover, is not an insurance policy against unbe- 
lief, rebellion, and rejection by God. The Israelites 
were all church-members in good and regular standing ; 
they were all baptized unto Moses, they all passed 
through the sea, they were all regular attendants at 
the sacrament table, for they all did eat the same 
spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual 
drink ; but these ordinary means of grace were not 
sufficient to bring them into Canaan. For with many 
of them God was not well pleased. Now, these things 
are our examples, types of the faithful few and the un- 
believing many in the church, who assent to the easier 
gospel truths, and reject those glorious doctrines which 
really test faith. 

3. This historic scene should be earnestly contem- 
plated by all Christian leaders, showing as it does their 
awful responsibility for their right influence on the 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 237 

mass of Christians who look to them for guiaance in 
the spiritual life. In the question of faith or unbelief 
in God's promises, the adage is still true, ^' Like priest, 
like people." Unbelief is more contagious than faith, 
because of the greater susceptibility of fallen humanity 
to distrust God's promises and threatenings. Says Dr. 
Daniel Curry, " Let the pulpit be silent on any doc- 
trine a single generation, and that doctrine will be ex- 
terminated from the faith of the church." I can but 
think that a sad era of spiritual weakness and incoming 
worldliness, with no dike to keep out the devastating 
flood, would follow Methodism's relaxed grip upon this 
distinctive truth committed to her by God through 
John Wesley. If mere silence will exterminate a vital 
truth, then silence is culpable. It is easy to proclaim 
accepted truth. It seems to be difficult to herald dis- 
tasteful and unpopular truth. But this is just the 
kind of truth which God wants to have published. 
The false prophets can all be depended on to advocate 
doctrines pleasing to the masses. Only the true proph- 
ets will voice unpleasant truth, with the gibbet, the 
stake, and the block in full view. There is about as 
good a chance for martyrdom in our day as in the time 
of Nero ; that is, as good an opportunity of suffering 
with God's truth, his unaccepted truth, which he has a 
special partiality for. On the other hand, there is just 
as wide a scope for selfish ambition in the pulpit as in 
politics, especially in denominations having a graded 
ministry, from an exhorter up to a bishop. 

If worldliness dominates the church and controls 
the pulpit, the temptation will increase to neglect the 
doctrine of sin and repentance, regeneration and retri- 



2^8 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

bution, and above all, the necessity of self-crucifixion 
and entire sanctification, in order to the attainment of 
the most vigorous spiritual life and the highest effi- 
ciency in service. 

What became of the ten spies ? No ordinary pun- 
ishment was inflicted (read Num. xiv. 36, 37). They 
died by the plague before the Lord, A plague is a 
stroke. This was given immediately by Jehovah, with- 
out secondary causes. They died suddenly by a bolt 
which proceeded visibly from Jehovah. 

4. God's estimate of religious cowardice, or the sub- 
ordination of religious convictions to selfish ends through 
fear of loss of popular favor or worldly gain. Cowardice 
in military law is a capital crime. So is it in God's 
law. (Read Rev. xxi. 8.) Here we have the world of 
wicked men trooping in platoons down from the left- 
hand of the judge to the open gates of hell. Begin- 
ning at the rear of the column, scrutinize each platoon, 
and see how they increase in the enormity of their 
guilt, — 1st, liars; 2d, idolaters; 3d, sorcerers, pre- 
tenders to a control of spiritual agencies ; 4th, whore- 
mongers, who have blighted human happiness and 
ruined souls for gold ; 5th, murderers red with blood ; 
6th, the abominable, those polluted with unnatural 
lusts, such as the sin of Sodom ; 7th, the unbelieving, 
who wilfully reject sufficient proofs of the truth 
through stubbornness or some selfish end ; 8th, the 
last platoon is the cowards. They are not stained with 
crimes, nor filthy with vices. They do not defiantly 
reject the word of God, but they are convinced of the 
truth as it is in Jesus ; yet from fear of loss of reputa- 
tion, property, or life, they refuse to follow where the 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 239 

truth leads. Such, be they preachers or laymen, will 
head the procession which will march from the judg- 
ment-seat down to the lake of fire. Jesus has his eye 
on religious cowardice when he says, " If any man is 
ashamed of me or of my words." His own life-blood 
throbs in his words. Are you ashamed of the words 
** perfect," ''perfection," *' sanctify," and "sanctifica- 
tion " ? and do you dodge them whenever you meet 
them ? Beware, lest Jesus dodge you when you seek 
his recognition in the day of the saints' coronation. 

5. The question how much God can do for a soul in 
probation is not left to be determined by the majority 
vote of the great men of any church. This question, 
in the words of Joseph Cook, has not been left to be 
decided "by a count of heads and a clack of tongues." 
In a question of speculative theology or of scriptural 
interpretation, it will do to lean on the authority of a 
majority of experts ; but on the practical question of the 
extent of gospel salvation from sin, through the power 
of the Holy Spirit, the unlearned minority who have 
put the doctrine to experimental proof may be very 
much wiser than the learned majority of the magnates 
of the modern church, who have never subjected the 
question to the test of personal experience. Here the 
testimony of some Uncle Tom or Amanda Smith of 
the slave plantation may outweigh the opinion of a 
whole faculty of German theological professors. Ex- 
perience outweighs theory ; faith makes philosophy 
kick the beam. 

6. As Caleb and Joshua were kept out of Canaan 
thirty-nine years through the unbelief of the majority 
of the church in the wilderness, so many in our day 



240 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

are kept from perfect soul-rest in entire sanctification 
through the chilling apathy and palsying unbelief of 
the body of Christians with whom they are in fellow- 
ship. We mean to say that their own faith never 
mounts up and grasps the prize because so heavily 
weighted with the unbelief of others. Are not these, 
who thus obstruct the faith of earnest souls, near akin 
to those woe-deserving Jews, who entered not them- 
selves, and them that were entering they hindered ? 

7. Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us 
of entering into his rest any of you should seem to 
come short of it. Fear for yourselves, and fear for the 
disciples kept out of full salvation through your influ- 
ence. I may be addressing professors who have so 
little love for holiness that their most anxious inquiry 
is to find the lower limit of the Christian life, and their 
highest ambition to live as near down to that limit as 
will enable them to escape from hell, instead of mount- 
ing up to the upper boundary line of possible salvation 
this side of glory, and pitching their tents — 

*' Where dwells the Lord our Righteousness, 
And keeps his own in perfect peace, 
And everlasting rest." 

Let us labor to enter into this rest ; labor to conquer 
the pernicious habit of unbelief, to tear away from our 
souls the deadening apathy of half-hearted Christians 
around us ; labor to pile up promise upon promise, 
till we have a pyramid on whose summit we may 
plant our feet, and with outstretched hand of faith 
grasp the realization of the tallest promise in the word 
of God. 



THE TEN SPIES AN EVIL REPORT. 24I 

The future of obedient Israel — alas that it is only 
ideal — is fully described in Lev. xxvi. 3-13. This 
typifies a state of perpetual victory over sin, not re- 
pressed, but exterminated, the enjoyment of cloudless 
communion with the Father and the Son by the Holy 
Spirit, who maketh free indeed. 

Each of you choose this day between Israel as he 
might have been, God's ideal Israel, and Israel as he 
was through his lack of faith, actual Israel, wander- 
ing forlorn and comfortless, under the ban of the 
Almighty, sowing the Sinaitic desert with his bones, 
with the vineclad hills of Canaan in full view. Ye 
choose to-day between the majority and the minority 
report, and ye shall be forever richer or forever poorer 
for your choice : — 

** * Let us go up:' were we redeemed by blood, 
And by the wonders of a mighty hand, 
That we should linger this side Jordan's flood, 
Heirs of a wilderness of sand? 

Why did the sea open her crystal gates, 

Bidding her waves stand up like jasper walls? 

' Forward ! ' the waters said, ' for Canaan waits, 
With palms and vines and Salem's princely halls.' 

'Let us go up,' and end the desert strife, 

Claiming the land of plenty as our own; 
Beyond the river is the better life, 

Of harvest, harps, with Temple and a Throne. 

* Let us go up,' the Jordan's waves will part; 

Faith, like her Lord, can walk upon the sea: 
God's promised lands are for the brave of heart — 

Obedience, trust, these are the only fee. 



242 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

'Tis God who gives us rest, we but receive: 
'Tis he who fights, we gather up the spoil; 

His strength is ours if we will but believe. 
And ours the land of corn and wine and oil. 

We conquer by surrender; loss is gain 

If self and sin are lost, for Christ is won: 

In Christ abiding, Satan tempts in vain, 

And ha\"ing Christ, we have a heaven begun. 

To those who doubt, God gives a desert grave, 

A lonely burial in the burning sands : 
The Calebs pass beyond the Jordan wave, 

To find an Eshcol in the southern lands. 

WTio follow ' fully,' with a heart that clings 

Fast to the promise of the faithful Lord, 
They find the upper and the nether springs; 

Cities of ' peace '* and ' song ' are their reward. 

Go up, then, children of the promise, claim 

The land of rest and plenty as your own; 
You have the Ark, you have the mighty Name; 

Pass up, the kingdom waits, the palm, the Throne I " 

Henry Burton, 



FAITH HEALING. 243 



XXXV. 

FAITH HEALING. 

Of late there has been earnest effort to restore to 
modern Christianity the lost charisms or extraordinary 
gifts of the Spirit described in i Cor. xii. 4-1 1. The 
Irvingites, recently organized under the name of the 
Catholic Apostolic Church, profess to have recovered 
these gifts by restoring the various orders of a complex 
ecclesiasticism, — apostles, prophets, evangelists, and 
pastors. There is good evidence that several persons, 
mostly women, were endowed with the gift of tongues, 
and some remarkable cases of instantaneous healing 
were attested in the early stages of the movement, be- 
tween 1828 and 1848. More recently there has been a 
very widespread inquiry about healing by faith. It is 
taught by some in various evangelical churches that 
the atonement covers sickness as well as sin, and that 
any invalid may as confidently trust for healing as the 
penitent trusts for the pardon of sin ; in other words, 
the grace of faith attainable by all is the only requisite 
to healing every disease. Hence, we infer that every 
sick person is, to a certain extent, an unbeliever and 
responsible for his own continued sickness. "The sick 
man is a rascal," was the vigorous Saxon in which Dr. 
Samuel Johnson expressed the rednctio ad absurdum to 



244 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

which he brought the advocates of this doctrine in his 
day. 

Let us now examine the texts alleged to prove that 
the atonement conditionally removes all sickness as 
well as all sin. 

Isa. Hit. 4, the R. V., margin, " Surely he hath 
borne our sickness." This is one of the items of the 
sufferings of the coming Messiah. It is correctly 
translated in Matt. viii. 17, — and bare our sicknesses. 
The best scholarship rejects the idea of atonement 
here. " The idea is poetical," says Meyer, who adds, 
" When their ailments are taken away from the diseased, 
the marvellously compassionate One who does this 
stands forth as he who bears the burden lifted from the 
shoulders of others." This is the figurative way of 
saying he healed them under circumstances which 
awakened a painful sympathy. We are to think of a 
pure and sensitive soul brought into contact with forms 
of suffering, and beholding them as a specimen of a 
millionfold more misery in a groaning world. To the 
heart of Jesus all our woes and pains were present, and 
they pierced him through with many sorrows. Read 
carefully the account of a single day's work of Christ 
in Luke iv. 33-41, the healing of the demoniac in the 
synagogue, of Peter's wife's mother in Peter's house ; 
and at eventide let your imagination individualize the 
vast number sick with divers diseases crowding the 
house and yard and street, *' on every one " of whom 
Jesus laid his healing hands. With patient love the 
Good Physician takes up each new case, and bears away 
the burden of manifold diseases by his mighty power. 
Yet as a man he must have felt the nervous strain of 



FAITH HEALING. 245 

such a draft upon his sympathies. This explains why- 
Isaiah enumerated healing among the sufferings of the 
Man of Sorrows, and in close relation to his being 
bruised for our iniquities, prefiguring the atonement, 
while healing is not included therein, but is rather an 
evidence of his Messianic character and of his sonship 
to God. 

The difficulties besetting the subject of healing by 
faith disappear when the distinction between the grace 
of faith and the gift of faith is clearly understood and 
acknowledged. All Christians believe in praying for 
the sick, and in praying with faith in humble submis- 
sion to the divine will. This is the only petition which 
the true child of God can present, unless he is super- 
naturally endowed with the assurance that the healing 
in answer to prayer is his will, or, in other words, 
unless the Holy Spirit inspires in him the gift of 
mountain-removing faith, defined by Wesley as the 
inwrought assurance that God in answer to prayer will 
grant this or that petition. 

The following are some points of difference between 
these two kinds of faith. 

This faith is something very different from the grace 
of faith. We note the following points : — 

1. The grace of faith is morally obligatory upon 
every soul having a knowledge of Christ, and the 
absence of such faith is the ground of condemnation. 
2 Thess. ii. 12. 

2. The gift of faith is not required of any one, but is 
sovereignly bestowed by the Holy Spirit, '* severally as 
he will." I Cor. xii. 11. This is called by the theolo- 
gians fides 7niraadosa (Matt. xvii. 20), or miracle-work- 



246 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

ing faith, in distinction from saving faith. Meyer 
styles it *' a heroism of faith." 

3. There is no more culpability for the absence of 
the gift of faith than there is for that of the gift of 
tongues or of miracles. 

4. The grace of faith is grounded on the Bible, while 
the gift of faith does not rest on the written word of 
God, but upon the revelation of the Holy Spirit made 
immediately to the human spirit. 

5. This testimony may relate to future events, when 
it is called prophecy : " Let us prophesy according to 
the measure of faith ; " or it may be an inwrought con- 
viction that in answer to prayer a certain sick person 
will be healed. "Faith" and "the gifts of healing" 
are in juxtaposition in St. Paul's catalogue of charisms. 
(i Cor. xii. 9.) Wesley's note is very judicious, showing 
entire freedom from fanaticism. We call the attention 
of all who abjure physicians and medicines. " Faith 
may here mean an extraordinary trust in God under the 
most difficult or dangerous circumstances. The gift of 
healing need not be wholly confined to healing with a 
word or a touch. It may exert itself also, though in a 
lower degree, where natural remedies are applied. And 
it may often be this, not superior skill, which makes 
some physicians more successful than others." " The 
prayer of [charismatic] faith shall save the sick," says 
St. James. 

Jajnes v. 15. We deny that this is the grace of faith, 
(i) because it is illustrated by an instance of Elijah's 
faith (in verse 17), in which he prayed for distress to 
come upon the land through the divine judgment. The 
grace of faith is exercised for blessings only. " Ven- 



FAITH HEALING. 247 

geance is mine," saith the Lord. (2) The i6th verse 
literally translated shows that it is a prayer specially 
inspired by the Holy Spirit, " The inwrought prayer 
of a righteous man availeth much." Thus Michaelis, 
HuTHER, and CEcumenius. 

Of course no healing follows the prayer not prompted 
by this extraordinary faith. The grace of faith is not 
sufficient. 

6. The grace of faith, when exercised in prayer, is 
always accompanied by the condition, " if it be thy will." 
The gift of faith is the assjirance beforehand that it is 
God's will to bestow the thing desired. Hence, those 
who have experience in the charism of faith for healing 
— the speaker has no such experience — say that there 
is no if in this kind of prayer. It is an unconditional 
grasping, not of the written promise, but of God himself. 

7. The grace of faith is a permanent habit, as indis- 
pensable to spiritual, as breathing is to natural life. 
Faith as a charism is occasional, and not permanent. 
St. Paul sometimes had it, and could heal (Acts xxviii. 
8), and sometimes he had it not, and could not heal, as 
we infer from 2 Tim. iv. 20. The charism of faith is not 
requisite to the highest spiritual life, nor to even the 
lowest stage, any more than speaking with tongues or 
miracles. 

8. The grace of faith is saving ; the charism is not 
saving. Says Wesley, '' Even the working of miracles 
is no proof that a man has saving faith " (Matt. vii. 22). 
Again, ''Though I have the highest degree of miracle- 
working faith, and have not love, I am nothing." Judas 
Iscariot once wrought miracles (Matt. x. 1-4), but is 
now in hell (John xvii. 12). The grace of faith works 



248 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

by love and purifies the heart. The gift of faith may 
exist without effecting any moral transfiguration of 
character. In support of this startling assertion, we 
quote I Cor. xiii. 2, to the Greek scholar, calling his 
special attention to the fact that the form of this con- 
ditional sentence {ean with the subjunctive) assumes 
the condition (charismatic faith without love) as pos- 
sible, with some present expectatioji that it may be 
realized. (See the Greek grammars.) Jesus Christ 
strongly hints at the same possibility in Matt. vii. 22, 
23. Balaam (Numb. xxiv. 4-13) and Saul (i Sam. x. 
10-12) may be quoted as instances of unregenerate 
men receiving the divine afflatus of prophecy without 
moral transformation. 

When Paul was on the island called Melita, and the 
serpent fastened itself upon his hand, no harm came to 
him. "And in the same quarters were possessions of 
the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius," 
who received them and lodged them three days. And 
the father of Publius was sick of a fever. Paul entered 
in and prayed, and laid his hands upon him, and healed 
him. " So when this was done, others also, which had 
diseases in the island, came, and were healed." — Acts 
xxviii. 5, 9. 

So Paul healed the sick. 

That sometimes he could not heal those who were 
sick, we infer from another passage in the epistles, 
which reads as follows : " Erastus abode at Corinth : 
but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick." — 2 Tim. 
iv. 20. Why didn't he heal him and bring him along } 
Because he was not conscious of the inwrought convic- 
tion that it was God's will to heal him. It was with- 



FAITH HEALING. 249 

held by the Holy Spirit. The gift of faith for his 
healing was not then bestowed. St. Paul had not any 
"supernumerary preachers." He needed every one in 
the ever-widening harvest-field of the gospel, and he 
certainly would have healed this disabled laborer if he 
had been able. 

The gift of faith may sometimes be bestowed with- 
out any corresponding growth in grace, or without 
effecting any moral renovation of character. Jesus 
Christ strongly suggests the same possibility in the 
Sermon on the Mount (Matt. vii. 22, 22,), " Many will say 
unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not proph- 
esied in thy name ? and in thy name have cast out 
devils ? and in thy name done many wonderful works ? 
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : 
depart from me, ye that work iniquity." 

Balaam and Saul may be quoted as instances illus- 
trating the fact that men may receive the gift of 
prophecy without moral transformation. The preach- 
ing of bad men has been the instrument in the regen- 
eration of men, because God puts honor upon his own 
truth. So cures were wrought by Judas, not on the 
ground of his moral worthiness, but because of the 
name of Jesus Christ, the omnipotent Son of God. See 
Matt. X. I, 4. 

St. Paul did not heal every sick person, as we have 
seen in the case of Trophimus. St. Paul speaks of 
" gifts of healing," " the //^/r*^:/ pointing," says Meyer, 
" to the different kinds of sickness, for the healing of 
which different gifts were needful." As there are men 
endowed by nature with the ability to treat special 
diseases successfully, so there may be specialties in 
supernatural healing. 



250 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

In conclusion, let me say that the need of a special 
gift of faith for healing is evident when we consider 
two facts : — 

1. That every exercise of faith must be under the 
primal curse, pronounced outside the gates of a lost 
Eden, " Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." 
Hence, there must be a special revelation that the sick- 
ness is not unto death, and that it is the will of God to 
heal, before there can be unwavering faith in behalf of 
any given case. 

2. Every exercise of faith for healing is for a person 
in probation, in whom it may be the divine purpose to 
bring forth for the beautifying of the moral character, 
the grace of submission to the divine v/ill. No one 
but God knows how hot or how long the furnace is to 
be heated. None but He knows the hour of deliverance. 
When the sufferer, or any other person, has a divinely 
inspired intimation that that hour has come, he can 
exercise unwavering faith for his cure. 

We can but regard the modern eager desire for the 
gifts of the Spirit instead of the graces of the Spirit 
comprised in that charity (i Cor. xiii.), which has been 
aptly styled, " the greatest thing in the world," as a 
sign not of real spiritual progress, but rather of decline 
in the divine life. St. Paul, after a full description of 
these extraordinary gifts in i Cor. xii., gives this com- 
mand, " But desire earnestly the greater gifts. And a 
still more excellent way I show unto you." He then 
proceeds to give a panegyric of charity, or love, as that 
eternal principle without which all gifts are worthless ; 
a principle superior in quality and dignity to all other 
cardinal Christian graces, and therefore infinitely supe- 



FAITH HEALING. 25I 

rior to those miraculous gifts which may exist in the 
absence of love (Matt. vii. 22, 23). 

Says John Wesley, " Many have had the gift of 
faith who thereby cast out devils, and yet will at last 
have their portion with them." 

To prefer gifts to that fulness of love which St. Paul 
eulogizes is to recede from the highest spirituality, if 
not to fall from grace. These gifts were attended by 
various extravagances, excesses, and fanaticisms, which 
gave St. Paul much solicitude. I have been pastor of 
fifteen churches, and I thank God that none of them 
was so disorderly and so trying to my patience as the 
church of Corinth, where the extraordinary gifts of 
the Spirit were fully bestowed, must have been to St. 
Paul — " Wrangling over Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, 
running after false teachers, full of envying, strife, and 
divisions, carnal, walking as men, harboring an incestu- 
ous person, without discipline, degrading the Lord's 
Supper into a feast of appetite and drunkenness, giv- 
ing to pastor Paul constant sorrow and anxiety — the 
Corinthians needed miracles to give them a respectable 
name ; and they so abused miraculous gifts by jealousy 
and contention that they turned their Sabbath assem- 
blies into cabals of men and women singing, praying, 
shouting, prophesying, pell-mell, without order or de- 
cency." 

Hence I have never offered a prayer for the restora- 
tion of the charisms, or extraordinary gifts. Follow- 
ing the apostle to the Gentiles as a guide, I have found 
the more excellent way, the way of love, and I am 
supremely blest. 

Though the apostle to the Gentiles, on rare occa- 



252 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

sions, exercised the gift of healing, he never gave it any 
prominence in his practice, and never mentioned it in 
his recorded sermons. His only mention of it in his 
epistles is to relegate it to rear of the beautiful proces- 
sion of the Christian graces, the fruit of the Spirit. 
As for himself, he had a physician as his travelling 
companion, who doubtless applied appropriate remedies 
to him in sickness. Why do I think so ? It is an in- 
ference from the Holy Scripture, " Ye know that be- 
cause of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel 
unto you the first time (Gal. iv. 13, R. V.y Some phys- 
ical disability, it may be lameness, hindered his jour- 
ney through Galatia toward Europe, but did not prevent 
his preaching while unable to travel. From a study of 
the Acts, chap. xvi. 7-10, we ascertain from the change 
in the pronouns from "they" to ''we," that Dr. Luke 
had overtaken St. Paul at Troas. We infer that in his 
detention in Galatia, near by, he sent for Luke because 
he was in need of his professional services. Our in- 
ference is confirmed by a study of Col. iv. 14, " Luke, 
my beloved physician, and Demas, salute you." Why 
do I say " my " instead of '' the " ? Because it is gram- 
matical to express an unemphatic possessive pronoun 
by the article in Greek as it is in English, " the doctor " 
meaning '' my doctor." See Hadley's Greek Grammar, 
§ 527 d, and Kuhner, § 244, 4. The Greek scholar will 
find seven instances of this kind in this epistle to the 
Colossians. I quote only one found in the first verse, 
'' Our brother " for " the brother," as in the R. V., mar- 
gin. See Bishop Lightfoot on Colossians. 

There are grave perils attending the doctrine that 
the atonement conditionally covers all sicknesses as it 



FAITH HEALING. 253 

does all sins. It is perilous to read more into the di- 
vine promises than the Spirit of inspiration intended. 
I heard William Miller read into prophecy the second 
advent in 1843 ; and in 1844 I heard him express his 
regret for his mistake, and the wish that he could '* get 
a peep at God's clock, and set his watch by it." His 
misinterpretation of the Bible may not have subverted 
his own faith in God, but it utterly destroyed the faith 
of many of his weaker disciples. In like manner, many 
have been assured that the exercise of the grace of 
faith would heal their sickness, to be bitterly disap- 
pointed in the dying hour. This is, to my mind, the 
worst feature of the delusion of divine healing as it 
is taught in our day. The sick are often trusting for 
a cure while steadily approaching the gates of death. 
They are taught to insist that they are healed, and to 
regard all the symptoms of sickness as the devil's 
counterfeits to shake their faith. Thus they do till 
some kind friend informs them that they will die in 
a few hours. Then they exclaim, as did one of my 
neighbors, " Whom can I trust now } " That must be 
a dangerous delusion, which is liable to bring the su- 
preme test of faith in the hour of supreme weakness. 
I never before fully appreciated the propriety of the 
following petition in the prayer-book committal service 
at the grave : '' Thou most worthy Judge eternal, suf- 
fer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to 
fall from thee !" 

The only safe instruction is to teach the sick to pray 
with an if — '' if it be thy will, O God, restore my 
health ; if it be not thy will, give me grace to endure 
my sickness and victory over the fear of death through 
Jesus Christ ! " 



254 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

I cannot state in a better manner the whole subject 
of healing in answer to prayer than to relate this over- 
heard dialogue between two little girls while President 
Garfield was lying mortally wounded : " I believe the 
President will get well, so many people are praying for 
him," said one of the girls. " I doubt it," said girl 
No. 2. "Then," replied No. i, "you don't believe God 
answers prayer, do you ? " No. 2, " Oh, yes, I do ; but 
sometimes he answers 'Yes ' and sometimes 'No.' " 



ST. JOHN INTERPRETED AND VINDICATED. 255 



XXXVI. 

ST. JOHN INTERPRETED AND VINDICATED. 

The Book of books is called the Holy Bible because 
it has a holy author, and aims at a holy purpose, the 
production of holiness in its readers. We should ex- 
pect to find nothing in it in any way extenuating sin, or 
implying its necessary continuance in any believer. 
Hence we should do more than suspect an interpreta- 
tion which favors sin. We should reject it as not in 
accord with the Holy Spirit, called holy because it is 
his office to extinguish sin, and create holiness in every 
consenting free agent. Nothing which justifies sin can 
proceed from God. He will never contradict in revela- 
tion the principles he has implanted in creation. He 
has created in me certain self-evident truths, styled by 
Joseph Cook " the activity of the immanent God in 
the human soul." Says Bishop Butler, *' Either clear 
immoralities or contradictions would prove a supposed 
revelation false." I think it is Shakespeare who says 
something like this, *' There is no sin which cannot 
find a parson to bless it with a text." In my treatment 
of such texts I am impelled, by self-evident truth or 
moral reason, or the immanent God within, either to 
pronounce them spurious, or to assert that they are 
grossly misinterpreted. I take the latter alternative 
in every case. 



256 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

I John i. 8, *' If we say we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us." ^ Many so 
erroneously explain this verse as to make it the great- 
est stumbling-block to Christian holiness in this life. 
It is interpreted as teaching that all Christians have 
sin, conscious transsfression of the law, all their lives, 
and are self-deceived and utterly destitute of truth, if 
they say they do not sin, or that sin as a culpable state 
is not in them. 

Dean Alford insists that " John is writing to persons 
whose sins have been forgiven them, and therefore 
necessarily the present tense have refers not to any 
previous state of sinful life before conversion, but to 
their now existing state." "If we say we have not sin 
in the course of our walking in the light, we deceive 
ourselves." 

Others go beyond Alford, and say that St. John pur- 
posely included himself when he said, *' If we say we 
have no sin," because he himself was conscious of 
having sin, and confessed it in the use of the first 
person plural. For one I wish to raise my voice to 
vindicate the beloved disciple from so gross a libel. 
The truth is, the candid student of St. John's style in 
this letter finds that for the sake of avoiding sameness 
of expression, like a good rhetorician, he uses a variety 
of phrases such as, " If a man say (iv. 20), " He that 
saith (ii. 4, 9), " If we say " (i. 6, 8, 10), without any 
perceptible difference in meaning, even to so keen an 
insight as that of Bishop Westcott. 

But let us apply a cardinal law of interpretation to 

1 This text is briefly treated on pp. 147-9. It demands a more extended 
exegesis. 



ST. JOHN INTERPRETED AND VINDICATED. 25/ 

this subject — the law of non-contradiction. We must 
avoid making a writer flatly self-contradictory. This 
interpretation contradicts the context, "The blood of 
Jesus Christ cleanseth [present tense] from all sin." 
" If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to for- 
give us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness." In what sense does a forgiven man have sin, or 
a cleansed man have impurity ? Turn now to i John 
iii. 9, *' Whosoever has been born of God [perfect 
tense implying that the new life has continued] is not 
sinning, because his seed abideth in him ; and he can- 
not be sinning, because he has been born of God." 
This is John's ideal of the regenerate, which is utterly 
irreconcilable with the character he has in view in 
i. 8. Whom has he in view ? This brings ms to the 
purpose of this epistle. That purpose is strongly 
hinted at in the first verse, in which he appeals to 
three of the five special senses, to seeing, hearing, and 
feeling, in proof of the reality of Christ's body. But 
who doubted, or rather denied, that his body was real 
matter, and asserted that it was a phantom which 
walked the earth thirty-three years.-* The Docetae, 
or seemers, who taught that the incarnation was a 
seeming and not a reality. Why did they teach thus ^ 
Their philosophy of dualism required it for the follow- 
ing reason. They asserted that good and evil are 
eternal and uncreated, and that moral evil resides only 
in matter, which is incurably evil. Even God cannot ex- 
pel it. An immoral inference was soon made by those 
pretended Christians who adopted dualism ; namely, 
that their souls, being immaterial, were always free from 
moral evil or sin, and had no need of cleansing through 



258 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

the atonement, nor could they be defiled by sin, which 
could taint the body only. Hence they could practise 
gluttony, drunkenness, impurity, and all other sins, 
while their souls were perfectly free from sin. Their 
favorite illustration was that of a golden jewel in a 
dunghill, the gold being in no way alloyed or defiled 
by the encompassing filth. So their souls remained 
untarnished amid sensual sins. At a doctrine so im- 
moral John aimed this epistle. He directed his spear 
to the weak spot in their philosophy. If sin exists in 
all matter, it existed in the person of Jesus Christ. To 
avoid so shocking an assertion they openly declared 
that he was a sham man. At this idea John directs his 
batteries from the beginning to the end of this epistle, 
again and again asserting that the Son of God has 
come i7i the flesh, not in a shadowy and unsubstantial 
form of a man. This aim of John at the Dualists, or 
Docetae, commonly called Gnostics, " the knowing 
ones," or "the illumined," is the key to the entire 
epistle, unlocking its - difficulties. Carry this key 
through the first chapter, and see how it opens the 
doors and lets in the sunlight. God's character is first 
cleared of all clouds, and made to stand forth as diffu- 
sive light, a personality in whom is no darkness, '' no, 
not even one speck." (Alford.) " If we [not genuine 
Christians, but professors corrupted by Gnostic notions 
and practices] say we have fellowship with him, and 
walk in darkness [i.e. in sin], we lie, and do not the 
truth." Says Dr. Whedon, " In truth, the three in- 
stances in this chapter of * if we say,' are quotations 
of the language of Nicolaitan Antinomians, who main- 
tained that however bad their conduct, they were still 
sinless." 



ST. JOHN INTERPRETED AND VINDICATED. 259 

Our next point is, that " to have sin " is a phrase so 
strong that it totally excludes the new birth, and that 
St. John could not have had genuine Christians in 
view when he wrote the words " If we say we have no 
sin." Bishop Westcott calls attention to the fact that 
this phrase " have sin " is peculiar to St. John, and is 
used elsewhere in the Bible only in John ix. 41 and 
XV. 22, 24, that it is much stronger than the verb to 
sin, and always implies guilt and desert of punishment. 
Bengel concurs. What logically follows } Either that 
St. John does not include real Christians in " If we 
say," but spurious ones of the Gnostic type, or it fol- 
lows that all Christians have guilt and deserve pun- 
ishment, and if they say they are forgiven and are 
regenerate, they deceive themselves and the truth is 
not in them. Every one who says he is justified is self- 
deluded, for every professed disciple of Christ, after 
believing on the Saviour with all heart, is still burdened 
with guilt and beneath divine wrath. This is the 
dilemma of the Alford school of expositors. Their 
theory that all Christians have guilt negatives justifi- 
cation, and contradicts St. Paul's joyful exultation in 
Rom. viii. i, ** there is therefore now no condemnation." 
The steps in our argument are few and plain. Guilt 
and the new birth are mutually exclusive. Sinning — 
a course of wilful violations of the known law of God 
— excludes being born of God (iii. 9) because guilt is 
incurred. "To have sin" in the meaning of St. John 
is to have guilt. Therefore the words ''to have sin" 
exclude from regeneration and the spiritual life. 

The difficulty with the Alford school is in the use 
of the phrase " have sin " in an indefinite, vague, and 



260 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

loose meaning, in the sense of weakness, defect, or 
involuntary error; whereas St. John always uses it 
in the definite sense of a guilty transgression of the 
law. It will not do to read into the Holy Scriptures 
our own modern, weakened, and blurred conception 
of sin. 

With St. John sin always entails guilt. It originated 
in the devil, *'who has sinned from the beginning" of 
sin. He inspired the first fratricide. Cain, not Adam, 
is the great exemplar of sin; *' not as Cain was of 
the evil one and slew his brother." Satan suggested 
the betrayal of Jesus. Sin always has a Satanic char- 
acter. There is no such character as " a sweet sinner." 
— (Father E. T. Taylor.) 

James traces sin to lust swaying the will ; " When 
lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin." Paul traces 
it to Adam ; '' Death passed upon all men, for that all 
have sinned." John's doctrine of sin is more clear-cut 
and less hazy than Paul's, because it always means one 
thing, lawlessness active, voluntary, and responsible. 
''Sin is lawlessness" in the concrete as an act, not in 
the abstract merely. In its essence it is an act of moral 
injustice, the wilful transgression of the known law of 
God. John contemplates sin in the light of the law, 
Paul in the light of his experience. John's best syn- 
onym for sin is a lie. These are a pair, as inseparable 
as their opposite pair, truth and holiness. Sin is hatred 
of the brother, and love of a world hostile to God. 
With John sin always entails guilt. It is never a guilt- 
less tendency. Nor does John weaken the term sin by 
confounding it with that word of various, and hence 
vague, meaning, the flesh, which in his epistles is not 



ST. JOHN INTERPRETED AND VINDICATED. 261 

used in a bad sense, but only " to express humanity 
under the present conditions of life." — (Westcott.) 

It cannot be proved that John uses sin in a softened 
sense without guilt, and that he applies it ** to Christians 
who though certainly not walking in darkness, yet have 
sinful tendencies in themselves, sensuous impulses, non- 
spiritual inclinations, lack of self-knowledge, a lowered 
standard, principles and views borrowed partly from 
the world, wavering of will, and hence even graver 
faults." — (Sinclair.) All of these defects may exist 
without guilt, so long as the will inclines to the right. 
The tenth verse, where a past tense is used, "have not 
sinned," strongly implies that *'the sins confessed" are 
not wilful transgressions continuously committed since 
the new birth, but are pre-Christian sins. It is cer- 
tainly a very unreasonable assumption that all Chris- 
tians knowingly commit sins, especially in view of 
John's strong assertion that " he that is born of God 
sinneth not." It is exceedingly difficult to harmonize 
a defence or extenuation of sin with the Holy Scrip- 
tures. Bishop Westcott has the true idea of the phrase, 
''to have sin." '' Like corresponding phrases, to have 
faith, to have life, to have grief, to have fellowship, it 
marks the presence of something which is not isolated, 
but a continuous source of influence. It is distin- 
guished from 'to sin' as the sinful principle is distin- 
guished from the sinful act itself. ' To have sin ' 
includes the idea of personal guilt." Bengel says 
" not to have sin denies gtiilt ; and 7iot to have sinned 
denies the actual commission^ 

To assume that this guilt exists in those who are 
walking in the light is shocking indeed. To say that 



262 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUl.. 

the non-imputation of personal guilt to the Christian is 
to deceive one's self, to be void of the truth and to 
make God a liar, in view of the precious doctrine of 
"the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins," is, to say 
the least, strange, severe, and contradictory language. 
John, the loving disciple, never applied such words to 
his brethren in Christ. Nor does he himself in this 
verse, by the use of *'we," confess sin, as Dr. Sinclair 
asserts. Says Alford, '' This state of needing cleans- 
ing from all present sin is veritably that of all of us ; 
and our recognition and confession of it is the very first 
essential of walking in the light." The absurdity of 
this note will appear by another paraphrase. " God 
is light, the light of holiness. If we walk in holiness 
as he is in holiness, faith in the blood of Jesus Christ 
banishes all darkness. But if we, while consciously 
walking in the light, say that we are not walking in 
darkness, we deceive ourselves, or if, while walking in 
holiness, we say we are not walking in sin, the truth is 
not in us." "The blood of Jesus Christ is the cure 
of sin, but if any one attests that cure, he deceives 
himself. Quinine is a sure cure of the African fever. 
But if we who have applied the remedy and proved its 
curative quality certify that we are healed, we are self- 
deceived." The truthfulness of my exegesis all turns 
on the existence of Gnostic heresies in Ephesus in 
John's lifetime. 

My readers will find some excellent commentaries, 
such as Alford's, which unaccountably evade any ac- 
knowledgment of the existence of these philosophies 
in the time of St. John's old age. But not long after 
his death, Polycarp, a pupil of St. John, writing to the 



ST. JOHN INTERPRETED AND VINDICATED. 263 

Philippians, quotes i John iv. 3, to show that this 
doctrine of the phantom Christ had worked down to 
the last fibres of the root of the creed, by two nega- 
tions—no resurrection of the body and no judgment. 
Its natural tendency is to evaporate dogmas, sacra- 
ments, duties, and redemption. If the body of Jesus 
was unreal, ''redemption was a drama with a shadow 
for a hero. The phantom of a redeemer was nailed to 
the phantom of a cross." The trend of modern sacred 
scholarship is toward the existence of these heresies, 
in germ form at least, as the historical setting of this 
epis'tle and the occasion of its being written. 

This is the view of Bishop Westcott in his exhaus- 
tive annotations on this epistle, and of Bishop Wm. 
Alexander in his notes in '' The Expositors' Bible," 
who gives a comprehensive yet concise statement of 
the general method and purpose of Gnosticism. ** It 
aspired at once to accept and to transform the Chris- 
tian creed ; to elevate its faith into a philosophy, a 
Gliosis (knowledge), and then to make this knowledge 
cashier and supersede faith, love, holiness, redemption 
itself." We note the principal theories : 

I. That '' sin " is inherited depravity, which is dimin- 
ished by the atonement, little by little, but leaving a 
residue till death. This may be styled the Calvinian 
theory, against which we have the following objections : 
(i) All the exhortations to perfected holiness are in 
the present tense. (2) All the prayers for this grace 
are in the same tense. Both exhortations and prayers 
are out of place if the thing sought cannot be obtained 
till death. (3) There is a total silence in the Bible 
respecting sanctification in death or after death. (4) 



264 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

A gradual sanctification, completed at death, leaves the 
whole work on the plane of natural law, with no em- 
phasis on the Divine Sanctifier. In fact, this theory 
could stand complete, even if the Holy Spirit should 
be left out altogether. 

2. The second theory is that the entirely sanctified 
soul has infirmities, errors, and ignorances, which daily 
need the blood of sprinkling. All of this may be true, 
but it is to be greatly doubted whether John applies so 
strong a term as sin to these involuntary defects. For 
they lack the voluntary element, and do not entail guilt. 
St. John knows no guiltless sin. 

3. The third theory is that sin has its full meaning, 
"actual and original" — (Bengel), but that the contin- 
uous cleansing has for its object not each individual 
believer through all his life, but the instantaneous 
purification of successive believers, one after another, 
through all the course of time. To justify our position 
we quote an eminent English exegete, Prof. Joseph Agar 
Beet : " It is worthy of notice that in the New Testa- 
ment we never read expressly and unmistakably of sanc- 
tification as a gradual process, or of degrees and growth 
in holiness, except perhaps in Rev. xxii. 11, 'And he 
that is holy, let him be made holy still,' or, 'yet more,' 
margin R. V." 

" A gradual process is not necessarily implied in the 
present participles of Heb. ii. 11 ; x. 14. "The present 
participle in Rom. iii. 24, ' Being justified freely by his 
grace,' referring to those who from time to time are jus- 
tified, proves that, in these two passages, the participle 
may denote those who from time to time are laid on the 
altar of consecration." Ellicott, on Heb. x. 14, says, "It 



ST. JOHN INTERPRETED AND VINDICATED. 265 

literally means those who are being sanctified, all those 
from age to age who, through faith, receive as their own 
that which has been procured for all men." To prove 
that the verb cleanse in the present tense is used of a 
succession of lepers, we refer the reader to Matt. x. 8, 
where the twelve are commissioned '*to cleanse the 
lepers.'.' But when an individual leper is cleansed in 
Matt. viii. 3, ''Be thou cleansed," the aorist is used to 
denote instantaneous and decisive action. This use of 
the present tense therefore denotes the continued effi- 
cacy for purifying from all sin, actual and original, by a 
momentary action, every successive believer who claims 
his full heritage in Christ ; and it does not signify the 
constant purification of the same individual till he dies, 
any more than the present tense in Rom. iii. 24 proves 
that justification is not one decisive act, but an action 
prolonged through life. 

4. There is a theory, universally rejected by the best 
scholars, that to cleanse signifies judicial clearance from 
sin, in the sense of forgiveness. But this makes St. 
John, in verse 7, an advocate of justification by works 
and not by faith only. For walking in the light, or 
maintaining a series of good works, would be the condi- 
tion on which the sinner is cleansed or cleared from 
sin. This would contradict that vital doctrine which 
teaches that God forgives not the godly, but the ungodly, 
through penitent faith in Jesus Christ. But the glory 
of the gospel is in the fact that Christ Jesus receives 
sinners who submit to him. " In verse 9," says Alford, 
" 'to cleanse from all unrighteousness' is plainly distin- 
guished from 'to forgive us our sin ;' distinguished as 
a further process ; as, in a word, sanctification, distinct 



266 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

from justification. This meaning must be held fast." 
This is to reject the judicial meaning of "cleanse." 

The theory has recently been advanced that St. John, 
in his first epistle, makes no distinction between love 
and perfect love, that the adjective perfect is an ex- 
pletive adding nothing to the sense. But it will be 
found that St. John uses these words with great dis- 
crimination and deep significance. This is seen in 
iv. 7, '' Every one that loveth is born of God." We 
note that the author does not say that loving perfectly 
is a sign of regeneration. This would have narrowed 
down the number of the regenerate to a few, excluding 
all weak and struggling believers. For such the be- 
loved apostle had a strong sympathy. He remembered 
the time in his early discipleship when he had so defec- 
tive love that he asked of Jesus permission to bid fire 
to come down from heaven and consume the bigoted 
Samaritans who did not receive his Master. St. John 
had seen very many young converts weak and wavering 
because of love imperfect and intermittent, needing 
sympathy and encouragement while trying to lay aside 
their pagan habits. It would have extinguished the 
smoking flax to have set the standard of regeneration 
so high as perfect love to the exclusion of lower de- 
grees. Instead of such a treatment of the weak in 
faith, this wise pastor recognized the new birth where- 
ever divine love had been implanted, in its lowest man- 
ifestations, and he beckoned them on to the higher 
altitudes, the Alpine summits of grace, by presenting 
the possibility of entering into the experience of pure, 
that is perfect, love. He was not afraid of discoura- 
ging them by telling them that it is better farther on. 



ST. JOHN INTERPRETED AND VINDICATED. 267 

This good news, proclaimed in love and not with 
threatening, will always be welcomed by every truly 
regenerate person. 

The same wise appreciation of any degree of love to 
God is seen in iv. i8. '* He that feareth is not made 
perfect in love." He did not say, " has no love," and 
hence is not a Christian. St. John writes with remark- 
able precision and discrimination, recognizing degrees 
in love, from the rill slowly meandering through the 
meadow to the Amazon floating the navies of the 
world. It is quite evident that St. John discerned 
two quite distinct classes in the school of Christ, and 
he treated them in such a way as to give no offence to 
the lower class, those not made perfect ; and that the 
specific difference is the presence or absence of fear. 
Both classes love, in the evangelical sense, the one 
wholly delivered from servile dread of God, of punish- 
ment, of death, and from forebodings of future ill ; 
while the other class has a degree of fear of these 
objects mingling with true love toward God and men. 
We call the attention of a certain class of zealous 
public religious teachers to the fact that St. John 
threw no stones at those whose love was imperfect, nor 
did he utter any word of threatening. They were all 
his brethren, the fearless and the fearful, those with 
love perfected and those with love incomplete. Yet 
he plainly implies that one state of experience is pref- 
erable. This he presents as a privilege. 

In I John iv. 12 we learn that continuous love (pres- 
ent tense) to one another as a brotherhood in Christ 
is another sign of perfect love. We believe that it 
is easier to love God whom we have not seen than our 



268 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

brethren with whom we are in daily contact, noting 
their defects and perhaps denying ourselves to minister 
to their needs. He whose affection for all the mem- 
bers of the family of God knows no interruption nor 
abatement, evinces that pure, and hence perfect, love 
dwells in his bosom. It is because of the decay of this 
love towards the brethren that so many secular brother- 
hoods, open and secret, have sprung up like suckers, 
diverting nourishment from God's vine, the visible 
Church of Christ. 

In I John ii. 5 we have another sign of perfected 
love. " Whosoever is [constantly] keeping [present] 
his commandments, in him verily hath the love of God 
been perfected." The tense of the verb implies con- 
tinuous, i.e., perfect obedience. Hence, says Alford, 
*' The perfect observation of his commandments is the 
perfection of love to him." A perfect, fruit-bearing 
tree implies a perfect root. Love is the root of obedi- 
ence. Defective obedience springs from mixed love, 
the self-life not having been nailed to the cross. We 
speak of the self that bears not the image of our ador- 
able Lord Jesus Christ. 

All English readers are perplexed with the appar- 
ently unconditional assertion of St. John in his first 
epistle, iii. 9, " Whosoever is born of God doth not 
commit sin." The reason assigned seems also to be 
without any conditions ; " because his seed remaineth 
in him," the love of God shed abroad in the heart by 
the Holy Spirit. (Rom. v. 5.) Then both assertions 
are strengthened by the declaration of the impossibility 
of sinning; '' and he cannot sin, because he is begotten 
of God." This seems to teach the absolute infallibility 



ST. JOHN INTERPRETED AND VINDICATED. 269 

of the regenerate. This is a doctrine far beyond the 
final perseverance of the saints, which conceded the 
possibility, and even the unavoidableness, of daily sin 
"in thought, word, and deed." But the Greek reveals 
an important condition in the perfect tense, "has been 
born," with the emphasis on the present to which this 
tense extends, thus implying the continuance of the 
regenerate life. The assertion of St. John, therefore, 
resolves itself into this, that, while loving God, a person 
cannot be disobeying him. The declaration is also 
modified by the use of the present tense " is not sin- 
ning," and " cannot be sinning," as a course of life, 
although under stress of sudden temptation he may 
commit a single sin as in ii. i. "If any man sin 
(aorist) " against the tenor of his character, " we have 
an Advocate " to whom the penitent may resort for 
pardon. But should there be no such penitent resort, 
but rather a persistent repetition of the sin, sonship to 
God is forfeited, and the habitual sinner is no longer 
included in the phrase "whosoever has been born of 
God." Thus St. John's "cannot sin" is harmonized 
with his " if any man sin." 

But in V. 18 there is a statement which apparently 
collides with this nice theory of harmony, — "We know 
that whosoever is born [perfect tense] of God sinneth 
not, but he that is begotten [aorist tense, denoting a 
single, decisive event] keepeth himself, and that wicked 
one toucheth him not." Here we seem to have in- 
fallibility predicated of the momentary act of regenera- 
tion, a state of perpetual sinlessness beyond the reach 
of the tempter. It would seem, after all, that St. John 
is not an Arminian, but the highest style of a Calvinist. 



2/0 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

Here the latest results of criticism on the Greek text 
come very opportunely to our relief. These results are 
seen in the R. V., '* But he that was begotten of God, 
[called only begotten in iv. 9] keepeth him." The 
text of Westcott and Hort has " him " instead of "him- 
self," and the keeping is conditionally done by Christ, 
kept by the power of God through faith." (i Pet. i. 5.) 
See Bishop Westcott's commentary on i John v. 18. 

Verse 17. " All unrighteousness is sin " means 
"every unjust act is sin." — A. Clarke, Bengel, 
Whedon, and Alexander. 

We will not attempt to explain the paradox of a 
"brother" who "sins a sin not unto death," and of the 
" sin unto death " for which we are under no obligation 
to pray. Future generations of scholars may arrive at 
some acceptable solution of this practical difficulty. 

The best explanation I can give is that St. John 
speaks of the irremissible sin. 

" There is a time we know not when, 
A point we know not where, 
That marks the destiny of men 
To glory or despair. 

There is a line, by us unseen, 

Which crosses every path, 
The hidden boundary between 

God's mercy and his wrath." 

Addison Alexander. 

The inexplicable difficulty lies in the question, How 
may we know who are past praying for } The poet, I 
think, is correct in his assumption that only God 
knows. 



HOLINESS AND HUMANITY. 2/1 



XXXVII. 

HOLINESS AND HUMANITY. 

James Arminius nearly three hundred years ago an- 
nounced that '* it is possible for a regenerate man to 
live without sin." This startled the high Calvinists, 
who charged him with a grave heresy. It was alleged 
that the ability not to sin, even though it be of grace 
through a persevering trust in Christ, placed the man 
beyond the power of temptation, destroyed the motive 
to watchfulness, and tended to loose living. It is the 
purpose of this chapter to prove that there are incentives 
to vigilance in those regenerate souls in whom the love 
of God is perfected and depravity is eliminated. The 
grace of entire sanctification does not change men into 
angels. They are still human, having appetites, pas- 
sions, and affections. These are innocent so long as 
they are normal. They are normal only when gratified 
within the limits of the Creator's will, made known by 
natural and revealed religion, conscience, and the holy 
Scriptures. Says Bishop Butler : " When we say men 
are misled by external circumstances of temptation, it 
cannot but be understood that there is somewhat within 
themselves to render those circumstances temptations, 
or to render them susceptible of impressions from them. 
Therefore temptations from within and from without 



2/2 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

coincide and mutually imply each other." The " some- 
what within " is not necessarily depravity. Where im- 
mediate gratification of a normal appetite does not 
consist with innocence there is danger of sinning. 
Hence watchfulness and self-denial are necessary to 
holy souls so long as they are in a state of probation. 
If it were not so the charge of immoral tendency would 
be valid against the tenet of Arminius, and both wisdom 
and benevolence would conspire to warn the regenerate 
against holiness. 

Here it may be well to say that some professors of 
this grace have fallen into the mistake of supposing 
that all tendencies to sin are eradicated from their 
hearts, and they have no longer need of circumspection 
amid the moral perils encircling them. The possession 
of appetencies tending to a vicious indulgence, but 
easily held in check by the sanctified will, is of itself a 
tendency to evil. A controlled tendency to sin is not 
sin. A thought of sin is not a sinful thought till it is 
welcomed and detained with pleasure. Concupiscence 
is not sin, but it carries in its bosom the fuel of sin. It 
is the business of the Christian to be ever on the watch, 
lest the spark fall into the powder magazine. Nobody 
in this world is out of bow-shot of the devil. No class 
of believers, however advanced in spirituality, can safely 
divest themselves of *' the whole armor of God," and 
hang it up in some museum of antiquities as an out- 
grown relic of an inferior religious experience. " What 
I say unto you, I say unto all, watch." Jesus himself 
not only prayed but watched. '' Tarry ye here and 
watch with me." (Matt. xxvi. 38.) He was perfectly 
human as well as perfectly divine, and had need to be 



HOLINESS AND HUMANITY. 2/3 

on his guard against the weakness of shrinking from 
the awful agonies in the cup which he must drink in 
redeeming the sinful race. Such shrinking from pain 
was innocent because it was instinctive. But since the 
bloody cross was the appointed instrument of redemp- 
tion, to avoid it and yield to a human impulse, innocent 
in itself, would have been to fail to do his Father's will. 
In the wilderness he hungered. It would have been 
right for him to gratify his craving for food, but not 
right, at the suggestion of the tempter, to use his om- 
nipotence to relieve himself from personal discomfort. 
Hence, the sinless Christ had need of self-denial and 
watchfulness against sensibilities in themselves holy. 
He pleased not himself. In this respect the servant is 
not above his Lord. Yet, while thus walking in his 
footsteps on the earth, he may be in righteous character 
as his risen Lord is in heaven. 

Thus we have given a description of those whom Dr. 
Pope styles the "perfectly regenerate," in whom "the 
entire removal of iniquity in the present life" has been 
effected (vol. ii. 85). This has not been accomplished 
in all who have been born of God, only in those in 
whom the new life has reached this consummation. 
Both alike " do not commit sin," and both have need 
to deny the unlawful gratification of innocent natural 
impulses, (i John iii. 9.) But in one class there is a 
struggle to overcome an inborn repugnance to obedi- 
ence still existing, but not dominant, thank God, while 
in the other the native resistance is absent. The 
expulsive power of the new affection of love divine has 
taken such possession of the believer that it neutralizes 
the sinward inclination, as the inflated balloon, over- 



2/4 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

coming gravitation, mounts upward toward the zenith. 
The other class is like the balloon which has cleared 
the earth, but does not majestically rise. The earth 
has still a strong grasp upon it and pulls it down. It 
seems to have more affinities for the world beneath 
than for the sky above. What is the secret of this 
strange downward tendency which hinders the ascent ? 
The sand-bags have not been emptied. The earth in 
the basket of the aeronaut has a strong pull upon the 
great globe which it is trying to leave. Buoyancy only 
slightly overcomes gravity. Diminish the latter and 
increase the former, and the ascent is accomplished. 
Yet gravitation is still its normal attraction. It is 
overcome, not destroyed. To interpret our figure to 
the simplest reader we would say that the completest 
victory over the world is twofold — negative in the 
extinction of inherited proneness to sin, and positive in 
the infusion of love to God to the utmost capacity of 
the soul. Both of these are accomplished by the Holy 
Spirit simultaneously when we by faith claim the full 
heritage of the believer, with the will in the attitude of 
perfect self-surrender to Christ. But the natural de- 
sires, implanted by our Creator, are not annihilated, but 
held within limits prescribed by him. 

Our discussion would not be complete without stat- 
ing the difference between that hereditary proneness to 
sin called in theology — not in the Bible — original sin, 
and that tendency to sin which arises from our consti- 
tution itself as moral intelligences endowed with natu- 
ral sensibilities. 

I. Sins resulting from these natural appetencies are 
not s'msj^er se (in themselves), but in the irregular exer- 



HOLINESS AND HUMANITY. 2/5 

cise of innocent affections, as gluttony is excessive eat- 
ing ; while the offspring of Adamic depravity, pride, 
envy, malice, hatred, disobedience to God, and unbelief, 
are not the excess of any innocent principle, but sins 
in themselves. 

2. This difference in character argues a difference 
in origin. The one class spring from natural desire 
in the individual ; the other class having their root 
not in nature in its rectitude, as it came from the 
Creator, but in nature twisted and bent by Adamic 
sin. 

3. Hence the normal appetites, passions, and affec- 
tions awaken no self-abhorrence in well-balanced and 
properly-instructed minds, showing that they are not 
products of the fall, notwithstanding Augustine's con- 
trary view of concupiscence. But self-loathing always 
attends sins per se as not being the excess of a good 
thing, but the fruit of a bitter root in nature itself. 

4. The safeguard against the first class of sins is not 
the extinction of our emotional nature, but its regula- 
tion by an enlightened intellect, and by strengthening 
the will in right action by the momentum of love divine 
" shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit given 
unto us." (Rom. v. 5.) The safeguard against the 
second class is the annihilation of the inborn " bent to 
sinning " by the Holy Spirit, the sanctifier. 

It will be naturally inferred that I do not ascribe all 
the sin in the world of mankind to the sin of our first 
parents in Eden. I do not accept the theory that the 
offspring of the sinless pair would have been beyond 
the reach of personal sin each for himself under the 
stress of temptation. There is a sense in which Adan. 



2/6 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

and Eve stood in probation for their entire race. Its 
perpetuation was involved in their moral choice, but 
not the moral character and destiny of their descen- 
dants. No one under the just government of God will 
ever be punished for another's sin. Adam's transgres- 
sion damaged his descendants, but it did not damn 
them. It did not determine their eternal destiny. 

At another point my article will be criticised — my 
distinction between tendency and proneness. My 
authority for my use of tendency is Bishop Butler : " If 
particular propensions can be gratified without the 
allowance of moral principle, or by contradicting it, 
then they must be conceived to have some tendency — 
in how low a degree soever, yet some tendency — to 
induce persons to such forbidden gratification." He 
shows that this slight tendency may be increased " by 
frequency of occasions," till finally it ends in actual 
deviation from the right. This is his theory of the 
origin of sin in a holy universe. It is just as good 
for the origin of sin in an entirely sanctified person, 
in whom the so-called original sin has been extin- 
guished. I have used proneness in its etymological 
sense as bending forward or headlong, as Milton de- 
scribes the fallen angels — "Down thither prone in 
flight." It means an habitual downward bent. 

The moral lesson is, " Let him that thinketh he 
standeth [it may be on some lofty altitude of Chris- 
tian experience] take heed lest he fall." (i Cor. x. 12.) 
"Mankind," says the bishop, "and perhaps all finite 
creatures, from the very constitution of their nature, 
before habits of virtue are formed, are deficient and in 
danger of deviating from what is right, and therefore 



HOLINESS AND HUMANITY. 2/7 

stand in need of virtuous habits for security against this 
danger." 

My moral lesson is not complete without another 
quotation for the benefit of myself and my brethren in 
the ministry of Christ, and all others who are brought 
into constant contact with Christian truth as teachers. 
In speaking of the formation of good habits as safe- 
guards, the bishop says : " But going over the theory 
of virtues in one's thoughts, talking well, and drawing 
fine pictures of it, this is so far from necessarily or 
certainly conducing to form a habit of it in him who 
thus employs himself, that it may harden the mind in a 
contrary course and render it gradually more insensible, 
i.e., form a habit of insensibility to all moral considera- 
tions." This is the philosophy of downfalls in the 
Christian pulpit. The safeguard is the personal prac- 
tice of all the precepts which the preacher preaches 
and the teacher teaches. Especially should he follow 
the example of St. Paul in the sanctification of the 
body : " I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage, 
lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, 
I myself should be rejected." (i Cor. ix. 27, R. V.) 

It is spiritually healthful for the minister of Christ 
often to ponder that most solemn admonition of our 
Lord Jesus to evangelical preachers in Matt. vii. 21-23. 
They are preachers because they prophesied ; they are 
evangelical because they call Jesus Lord, thus confess- 
ing his supreme Divinity. They are revivalists and 
reformers because they cast out demons and wrought 
many miracles. Yet they meet the unexpected sen 
tence in the final day, '' Depart from me." 



2/8 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 



XXXVIII. 

THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 

[A Sermon be/ore the Boston University School of Theology, May 30, 1871.] 

" For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith : and much 
people was added unto the Lord." — Acts xi, 24. 

The last clause of the text is so evidently a conse- 
quence of the qualities of Barnabas, that there is no need 
of the usual illative word, therefore. Much people, ac- 
cording to the Greek a vast crowd, were converted from 
paganism, and gathered unto the Lord Jesus, through 
the instrumentality of one man. It cannot be amiss, 
in addressing the patrons, trustees, and faculty of the 
Boston Theological School, to dwell for an hour upon 
the personal conditions of success in promoting the 
salvation of souls. For this is the final cause, the 
be-all and end-all, of the money here munificently lav- 
ished, and the time and toil here consecrated. This 
is the prayer of the church ; this the burden of many a 
Christian soul bowing in secret ; this the purpose of 
the founders, — Isaac Rich, the munificent ; Lee Claflin, 
the bountiful; and Jacob Sleeper, the princely; and of 
others who have gone up on high. This the secret of 
the interest of holy angels, and of Jesus Christ the 
Lord of all. Not to magnify a sect, but to save men 
from sin and hell, was this institution established. St. 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 2/9 

Luke asserts that Barnabas had three personal qualifi- 
cations for evangelical success. He was a good man, 
and full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. We infer, 
therefore, that those characteristics which are essen- 
tial to the work of the Christian ministry may all be 
grouped under three heads, — Character, Creed, and Ex- 
perience. The discussion of these, in the order indi- 
cated, well constitutes the plan of my discourse. 

I. There is no profession, no line of effort, in which 
character is so absolutely essential to success as the 
Christian ministry. Men will retain a tippling lawyer, 
if he have power to sway juries, running the risk of 
finding him tipsy on the court day. The physician, 
whose skill in the healing art has made him famous, 
may be profane and licentious, and yet retain his pat- 
ronage. The rakish artist, if genius moves his brush 
or chisel, finds a ready and remunerative sale for his 
masterpieces ; while the statesman, or politician rather, 
— alas for our times ! — fears the falling off of his ma- 
jorities, less because of his moral delinquencies, than for 
his disobedience to the mandates of his party. Not so 
with the gospel minister. His purity of character is an 
indispensable coefficient of his success. This is because 
Christianity is not a science only, a system of religious 
truth. It is this, but it is more. It is a life, a divine 
transforming power. It is effectually preached when 
its truths are exemplified in the life of the preacher, as 
well as inculcated by his tongue. He preaches in vain, 
who cannot point to his own moral rectitude, his own 
saintly character, as a specimen of the transfiguring 
power of the gospel. Even those deluded souls who 
risk their salvation on the efficacy of the sacraments, 



280 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

through successional ordinations from the apostles, find 
in a dissolute clergy the strongest trial of their faith — 
a trial which multitudes cannot endure, but go away 
from the altar served by debauched priests, into the 
arid regions of atheism, where they are relieved from 
the disgusting sight of a genuflecting hypocrisy. The 
sinless character of Jesus is the one stubborn fact, the 
miracle of miracles, which renders his gospel such a 
power among men. The existence of such a character 
in the world's literature is a wonder which neither 
Strauss nor Renan, Parker nor Emerson, can explain. 
The absolute rectitude of Jesus is \i\% poii sto — his 
Archimedean foothold on which with the lever of his 
truth he can lift the fallen world up to God. When 
men read the philosophies of Hegel, Kant, or Hamil- 
ton, they are not demanding certificates of the moral 
integrity of these authors before they will accept the 
truth of their systems. But the character of Jesus 
Christ cannot be detached from his gospel. Chris- 
tianity centres in his person. One act of sin in the 
author destroys our faith in a scheme whose great 
purpose is the destruction of the works of the devil. 
There is a sense in which the same is true of the 
preacher's relation to the truths which he preaches. 
Not that the truth of the Christian system depends on 
any or all its advocates. Christ would be true, though 
all his apostles had betrayed him. Yet Christ's glory 
among men would be obscured to the eyes of men, 
yea, eclipsed, by any such moral defection among his 
modern evangelists. The gospel would be powerless 
to save those who reject its claims, stumbling at the 
moral obliquities of its advocates. Alas, this is not all 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 281 

hypothetical. Church history has many a dark page 
demonstrating the truth of our assertion, that a vicious 
priesthood neutralizes the efficacy of the gospel on 
their lips. Wherefore, be ye clean that bear the ves- 
sels, of the Lord : — 

"Jesus, let all thy servants shine 
Illustrious as the sun, 
And bright with borrowed rays divine 
Their glorious circuit run." 

But goodness is positive as well as negative. It im- 
plies the presence of benevolent affections, as well as 
the absence of moral obliquities. Barnabas was a man 
of large human sympathies. In the exigencies of the 
times succeeding the Pentecost, when it was desirable 
that the whole company of converts should be kept 
together at Jerusalem for their spiritual instruction, he 
is especially mentioned for the promptness with which 
he puts all his worldly goods at the disposal of the 
church in this extraordinary crisis, evincing thereby a 
perfect spirit of benevolence and of consecration the 
farthest removed from all selfish ends in his Christian 
ministry. This spirit of transparent generosity, self- 
abnegation, and perfect devotion to the good of the 
church and to the glory of Christ, was an element 
of power in his ministry. It is so now. The eagle- 
eyed world is forever prying into character, and scru- 
tinizing motives, especially in the case of those who 
profess that — 

"The love of Christ doth them constrain 
To seek the wandering souls of men." 

When there is found one who discards all worldly 
motives, and sublimely toils through life, enduring 



282 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

poverty as " seeing him who is invisible," the world's 
logic is nonplussed ; it has found a practical argument 
which it can no more answer than it can the original 
witnesses of the Christian miracles, passing their lives 
in labors, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily under- 
gone in attestation of the truth. A kind heart, a large 
philanthropic soul, whether it comes of nature or of 
grace, is so kindred to the spirit of the gospel, that its 
possessor stands on a high vantage-ground in winning 
souls to Christ. A hard and unsympathetic nature is a 
poor medium through which the melting story of the 
cross is to be poured into the hearts of men. Such 
a man, though he had the massive intellect of Lord 
Bacon, would not add many souls to the Lord Jesus. 
He might be a Titan in polemical theology. But only 
one such to stand guard over our theological founda- 
tions is enough for a generation. The conversion of 
sinners depends more on the warm atmosphere of love, 
which attends the presentation of the truth, than on 
logical power. Few men can follow an abstruse argu- 
ment, but all can feel. We must not forget that the 
Lord Jesus came to save men of low degree. These 
are the majority. They are more skilled in the use 
of the plough, the hammer, the shuttle, and the oar, 
than with the syllogism in Barbara. It took the great- 
ness of John Wesley to find this out, and to adapt his 
preaching to the semi-barbarian peasantry and colliers, 
and to impress this peculiarity on all his successors to 
the present time. That peculiar influence which is 
called the savor of a man, the most uncultivated in- 
tuitively perceive and feel. Hence the power of a 
preacher who carries with him the savor of goodness, 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 283 

evincing itself in his zeal for the suppression of the 
causes of vice and misery in this life, and thus com- 
mending his sincerity in his efforts to lead the people 
to life everlasting. When will Protestantism out of its 
wealth build, endow, and control, as evangelic agencies, 
hospitals and eleemosynary institutions, as Romanism 
builds them out of her gathered mites for the aggran- 
dizement of herself ? True Christianity is the only 
genuine philanthropy. The minister of Jesus Christ 
divests himself of a large element of influence when he 
lays aside philanthropy in its common acceptation ; and 
he puts a powerful weapon into the hand of his adver- 
sary, when, through his neglect, he allows the enemy 
of the cross of Christ to assume the championship of 
any humane enterprise. 

II. But the minister of Christ must be more than 
a philanthropist medicating human woes, heading moral 
reforms, and preventing social demoralization. His is 
the difficult task of eradicating sin from human souls. 
Sin is not a cutaneous disease, to be cured by perfumed 
lotions, to be rose-watered out of the world. It is a 
stubborn and radical fact, demanding thorough and 
drastic treatment. The only medicine for its cure is 
spiritual truth rendered effectual by the Holy Ghost. 
Since this truth is not discovered by reason, but is dis- 
closed by revelation, it is apprehended and made real to 
the soul only by faith. This brings us to the second 
element of Barnabas's success, — the completeness of 
his faith, historical and fiducial. Jesus Christ gives 
a wonderful prominence to the truth as the instrument 
of human salvation. " For this cause was I born, that 
I might bear witness to the truth." "The Spirit will 



284 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

guide you into all truth." "Sanctify them through 
the truth." "The sword of the Spirit is the Word 
of God." He who most skilfully and vigorously wields 
this sword will have the greatest success in revealing 
the wicked heart to itself. Conviction of sin is nothing 
more than God's truth held up as a mirror till the sin- 
ner sees his own image hideously marred and scarred 
by sin. The successful preacher is characterized by an 
acquaintance with the mirror which has such marvel- 
lous revealing power. He adjusts it to the dull, pur- 
blind eye. He sets it in the strongest light, that it 
may have its legitimate effect. There are many in our 
day who affect to despise doctrines, creed-statements of 
gospel truth. They endeavor to magnify their own 
originality, liberality, and independence in theological 
inquiries by belittling creeds. They perpetually hint 
that a creed is enslaving and dwarfing to its believers. 
They assert that some men can do more with a jack- 
knife than others with a whole chest of edged tools. 
This may be true, without impairing the credibility 
of the assertion that most builders would prefer the 
chest of tools. Rationalism, with its jackknife, may 
manage to rear a leaky wigwam out of the knotty poles 
and birch-bark of natural religion ; but the true preacher 
of Christ needs better implements; for he is not build- 
ing a wretched hut for a day, but an enduring palace, 
the habitation of God through the Spirit. Free religion 
begins its downward career by pouring contempt upon 
a historical faith. Its next step is the denial of a his- 
torical Christ. Its last is the apotheosis of human rea- 
son. Whereas it is no more derogatory to reason to 
accept some truths as primary in theology, than it is in 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 285 

metaphysics ; in the one the revelations of the inspiring 
spirit, and in the other the testimony of the human 
consciousness. Through all the ages of Christianity 
the power and spirituality of the church have been 
in exact proportion to the faithfulness with which the 
truth has been preached. God's truth is the very soul 
of persuasion. He who has fed upon it, digested it, 
and incorporated it into the very texture of his soul 
by a living faith, has the grand secret of pulpit power. 
The word of God is quick, i.e., a living power on earth. 
It was St. Paul's boast that he had not only "fought 
the good fight," but that he had "kept the faith," the 
precious deposit of gospel truth committed to his hand 
as the sword of his triumph. "This is the victory 
which overcometh the world, even your faith." Hence, 
in this sifting and sceptical age, which levels its bat- 
teries at revealed truth with that satanic sagacity which 
assailed the Incarnate Truth himself, we, who know 
the secret of our strength, will " contend for the faith 
once delivered to the saints." 

But even the truth is not ultimate. It is a means to 
an end. It is to be conserved for its uses. It has not 
an absolute, but a relative, value. It is the instrument 
of our sanctification. 

III. Faith worketh experience. This introduces the 
third qualification, on which we shall amplify more 
extendedly. 

I. Barnabas was filled with the Holy Ghost. Here is 
an experience deep, broad, and full, which gave an irre- 
sistible momentum to the activities and utterances of 
this man of God, and crowned his labors with abundant 
fruits. Brethren, there is a Holy Ghost. Will you 



286 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

pronounce it fanaticism if your preacher should say 
that he has gone beyond the Apostles' Creed, and that 
he knows the Holy Ghost ? The Master justifies this 
declaration. "But ye know him, for he dwelleth with 
you, and shall be in you." Does not even Philosophy 
herself teach that faith is to eventuate in knowledge ? 
Have not all the discoveries in the experimental sciences 
proceeded thus on the maxim of Anselm, Credo ut intel- 
ligam, "■ I believe, in order that I may know > " Does 
not the faith of the Christian in a future heaven lead 
him to a future knowledge of that heaven, and shall his 
faith in the present Holy Spirit not lead into a present 
knowledge of the Comforter } Faith begets knowledge, 
and knowledge in turn begets faith in the still higher 
manifestations of God. Hence the maxim of Abelard 
is also true, Intelligo tit credani^ "I know, in order 
that I may l\elieve." Thus believing in order to know, 
and knowing in order to believe, my winged soul 
mounts up this Jacob's ladder from earth to heaven. 
How beautifully does St. Paul set forth this ladder of 
faith and knowledge, combining the maxims of Anselm 
and Abelard, " I know whom I have believed [here 
is faith a stepping-stone to knowledge], and am per- 
suaded that he is able to keep what I have committed 
to him unto that day " — here is knowledge a stepping- 
stone to a new and higher act of faith. Therefore, it 
ought not to be incredible that the soul, climbing this 
divine ladder let down from heaven, should at length ar- 
rive at a knowledge, not only of the Holy Spirit, but of 
the fulness of his indwelling as the Answerer and Sanc- 
tifier. This is the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, as 
interpreted by the Wesleyan fathers, and confirmed by 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 28/ 

their experience and apostolic lives. It was the key- 
note of Methodism when she sounded her bugles for 
her march round the world ; and throughout her march 
of a century her columns have faltered when they have 
failed to hear this peculiar note, and have dashed on in 
triumph when it has been distinctly heard again. 

American Methodism has come near losing the doc- 
trine of the fulness of the Holy Spirit as a blessing 
distinct from regeneration. The causes are various. 
The growing popularity of this church, and its advance 
in social status, have attached to its communion many 
to whom a deep spirituality is distasteful. An unfortu- 
nate spirit of philosophizing on this subject, the unscrip- 
tural presentation of it with threatenings, and the many 
imperfect, and some counterfeit exemplifications of this 
blessed experience, together with the fear of Palmerism 
in the East, and of Nazariteism in the West, have, in 
the language of Charles Wesley, — 

" Staggered thus the most sincere, 

Till from the gospel hope they move; 
Holiness as error fear, 

And start at perfect love." 

Yet despite all these causes, most of which troubled 
the Wesleys as they do us, we may, with the great poet 
of Methodism, join in the prayer, — 

" Lord, thy real work revive, 
The counterfeit to end." 

Thank God, the eclipse of this doctrine, which once 
threatened to become total, is rapidly passing away, 
and this light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ is shining forth again, betokening an era of spir- 
itual prosperity and power. 



288 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

Our Unitarian friends have recently considered and 
discussed the lessons which Methodism is teaching to 
Unitarianism. One of those lessons they find to be the 
entire consecration of the soul to the will of God, in- 
spiring to a zealous and self-sacrificing life for the sal- 
vation of the world. We do not deny that they have 
found the secret of our success. But when they come 
to practise this lesson, they will certainly fail unless 
they begin at the Methodist alphabet, — a living and 
omnipotent Jesus, and an indwelling, personal, divine 
Comforter, sealing this consecration by his sanctifying 
power, and making it a divine reality, and not a mere 
human sentiment. We have not copyrighted this al- 
phabet, for it is not our invention. It is as old as 
the New Testament, yea, as the Psalms of David — 
*' Restore thou unto me the joy of thy salvation, and 
uphold me by thy free Spirit ; then will I teach trans- 
gressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto 
thee." If feeble and waning churches wish to become 
aggressive and prosperous, let them get down on their 
knees with David, and wrestle with God for the joys of 
his salvation, and for the mighty guidings of the Holy 
Ghost. If a hesitating and powerless ministry, weak- 
ened by doubts, palsied by fear, would suddenly be- 
come bold, mighty, aggressive, and conquering, let 
them pray to be strengthened with might by his 
Spirit in the inner man. This is like steam to the 
motionless engine. If a complaining minister, fretting 
and chafing on hard appointments, would be lifted 
into a state of perfect and cheerful acquiescence with 
the divine will, where none of his powers will be 
wasted by friction, but all subsidized for Christ, let 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 289 

him seek the Spirit's anointing with the oil of glad- 
ness. For the Holy Spirit in the soul is both impulse 
and lubrication, both steam and oil to the locomotive. 

2. We are taught by many that after justification 
the progress of the soul is by a steady and gradual 
development of spiritual power, without crises, sharp 
transitions, and sudden emergencies from lower to 
higher states. It is said that this uniform and grad- 
ual unfolding of the spiritual life commends itself to 
reason as the natural and normal method, that only 
fickle, impulsive, and unstable souls, incapable of this 
uninterrupted and constant advance, are pushed ahead 
by the apparently irregular method of special spiritual 
impulses. It is asserted that even in the case of these, 
it is commonly, if not always, a sudden restoration 
from a backslidden state. It is asserted that a truly 
regenerate soul, remaining victorious over sin, needs 
no subsequent sadden and sharply defined outpouring 
unction, and baptism of the Spirit. But when we open 
the Word of God, we find that, both under the Mosaic 
and the Christian dispensations, spiritual development 
has been both by steady growth and spiritual crises. 
Thus the seventy elders were suddenly baptized with 
the Spirit when assembled at the tabernacle, and 
Eldad and Medad in the camp. But the most re- 
markable instance of a sudden spiritual anointing, not- 
withstanding an uninterrupted gradual spiritual growth, 
is that of the great exemplar, Jesus Christ. As he was 
a perfect man, soul and body, he had a normal physical 
and intellectual unfolding. We read, also, that his 
spiritual nature expanded gradually. As a man, he 
grew in favor with God. Yet before he entered upon 



290 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

his life-mission, he received a special impulse from on 
high to make him the centre whence spiritual power 
should go forth to bless all with whom he came in con- 
tact. That impulse was given to him by the Holy 
Ghost at his baptism by John, and in the power of the 
Spirit he returned to Galilee. 

We can no more fathom this mystery of the divine 
Son baptized by the divine Spirit, than we can that of 
the omnipotent Son praying to the Almighty Father in 
Gethsemane, and forsaken by him on the cross. Yet 
we must accept the historical fact of Jesus' baptism 
by the Holy Ghost as a preparation for his ministry, 
and that not till then do the evangelists speak of 
him as " full of the Holy Ghost," " led by the Spirit," 
and " in the power of the Spirit." He left us an exam- 
ple that we should walk in his steps in everything 
not peculiar to his person and mission. The blessing 
of the fulness of the Spirit cannot be peculiar to 
Christ, because it is promised to all who fully believe. 
Hence, it is instantaneous, as it was with Jesus at the 
Jordan, notwithstanding a previous uniform growth in 
favor with God. 

Can any Christian believer, preacher or layman, ad- 
dressing himself to his lifework, say that because he 
has a clear evidence of his conversion, he needs no 
anointing from on high to unify and intensify all the 
powers of his nature for the service of Christ ? Can 
he assert that because he is not conscious of backslid- 
ing, or even of one act of sin, therefore he needs no 
unction from the Holy One ? If you say that this 
was peculiar to Christ, and in no way an example for 
every believer, what mean those oft-repeated promises 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 29I 

of the Comforter to the apostles who had been de- 
clared to be already clean, and to every one who will 
ask the Father in his name ? If you say that this was 
miraculous and limited to the apostolic age, what does 
Christ mean when he assures his disciples that the 
Comforter would abide with them forever ? How hap- 
pens it that the common interrogatory to young con- 
verts by the apostles was, '' Have ye received the Holy 
Ghost since ye believed ? " and that believers were 
found, in Ephesus a few, and in Samaria a city full, on 
whom the Holy Ghost had not fallen till they were 
instructed respecting their privilege by the apostles ? 
St. Paul teaches that " after justification through the 
death of Christ, much more shall we be saved by his 
life." 

Again, this gift of the divine fulness must be instan- 
taneous, because it is conditioned on a definite act of 
faith. If a soul, with all its progress, never reaches a 
time when it distinctly apprehends, by a definite act of 
faith, '' the exceeding greatness of Christ's power to us- 
ward who believe," it will never obtain this heavenly 
baptism. 

We have not time to show that in all ages of the 
church the experience of the holiest men and women 
attests this doctrine of the fulness of the Holy Ghost 
as a work distinct from regeneration. 

If we had time to construct an argument from church 
history, digging down through its successive strata, 
after the manner of the geologist, we should find abun- 
dant proofs of the distinction between the regenerate 
state and the experience of the fulness of the Holy 
Spirit. But we have only time to direct your attention 



292 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

to the fossil remains of this distinction as seen to-day 
in the Roman, the Greek, the Lutheran, and the Eng- 
lish Churches in the rite of confirmation, for the pur- 
pose of communicating the Holy Spirit by laying hands 
upon the heads of those who are supposed to have 
already received the grace of regeneration through 
water baptism. Having demonstrated the possibility 
of the experience of the fulness of the Holy Ghost, 
we proceed to argue the necessity of this deep spirit- 
ual experience in the preacher as ground of confidence 
in the truth, the instrument which he wields for hu- 
man salvation. 

3. The ground of confidence is twofold. First, logi- 
cal certainties. Christian apologetics addresses the rea- 
son. The argument from prophecy, miracles, the morals 
of the gospel scheme, and the resplendent purity and 
majesty of Christ, and the propagation of the system, 
is designed to satisfy the intellect, and to produce the 
highest certainty attainable by probable, in distinction 
from demonstrative, proof. Hence, we cannot too thor- 
oughly educate our young Christians, especially our can- 
didates for the ministry, in the Christian evidences. 
They cannot too well know the certainty of those 
things wherein they have been instructed. They must 
be led about our spiritual Zion, and tell the towers 
thereof, and mark well her bulwarks, that they may 
intelligently defend their faith against the assaults of 
a rationalistic age, and be able to give a reason for 
the hope that is in them. 

But the highest degree of certitude lies not in the 
logical faculty. There is still room for doubt. Error 
may lurk in the premises ; a fallacy may exist in the 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 293 

process. The most that Christian apologetics can do is 
to leave us with an inference. What if the inference 
be incorrectly concluded ? I find myself every day 
making unwarrantable inferences. Is the advocate of 
Christian truth in his best estate left a victim to 
doubt ? Romanism says so. Her priests stoutly as- 
sert that no man can be absolutely certain of the for- 
giveness of his sins, and that the priestly absolution 
is conditional on the sincerity of the repentance and 
the completeness of the confession, of which none can 
be sure ; and that nearly all the saints of the canon 
died in doubt of their acceptance with God. Thus, in 
her eagerness to monopolize all teaching, Rome denies 
the illumination of the Holy Ghost. Even after the 
crowning miracle, the resurrection of their Lord, the 
disciples were not furnished with all needful certainty 
respecting the divinity of the gospel. Hence, they were 
not commanded to go forth after the first interview 
with the risen Saviour, and proclaim to all the world 
the divine origin of the gospel. That Jesus has power 
to save to the uttermost is still an inference. Will 
these men toil, suffer the loss of all — yes, die, to 
maintain the correctness of their logic ? Will they 
boldly meet all opposers, and conquer them with syllo- 
gisms ? Jesus did not put them to this test. There is 
a higher ground of certainty than the logical faculty. 
It is the intuitions. On this loftiest summit of possi- 
ble knowledge, Christ invites all his disciples to stand, 
'' Tarry ye in Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power 
from on high." Not many days hence I will baptize 
you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Your inmost 
souls shall be brought into conscious contact with God. 



294 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

The soul shall with open vision gaze upon the verities 
of gospel truth. The Spirit of God, more pervasive 
than the atmosphere, more subtle than ether, shall 
seal upon your hearts in characters unmistakable the 
certainty of my doctrine. Ye shall be assured of the 
truth on grounds as firm as the self-evident axioms of 
mathematics, as firm as the intuition of your personal 
existence. Absolute assurance shall be yours. Doubt 
shall fly before this demonstration of the divinity of 
the gospels, and joy shall rush in to fill the soul. Hith- 
erto each disciple might say, in view of his perplexities 
and harassing doubts, — 

" Like Noah's dove, I flit between 
Rough seas and stormy skies." 

After the baptism of the Spirit, he can exultingly 
sing, — 

" But now the clouds depart, 

The winds and waters cease, 
And sweetly o'er my gladdened heart 
Expands the bow of peace." 

The promise was more than fulfilled on the Day of 
Pentecost, and is now fulfilled to every Spirit-baptized 
soul. Brethren, I know whereof I affirm. I am, by the 
grace of God, one of a vast number of witnesses who 
can attest that Jesus Christ as the pardoning Saviour, 
and the Holy Ghost as the indwelling Sanctifier, are 
realities more veritable to the soul than Emmanuel 
Kant's two highest sources of sublimity, — the starry 
heavens above, and the moral law within. This certi- 
tude would not be increased by Jesus walking forth in 
human form before me, healing the sick and raising the 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 295 

dead — yea, rising from the tomb, and mounting the 
skies in full view of my unclouded vision. Said Jesus, 
It is expedient for you, for your assurance, that I, the 
miracle-worker, should go away. For I will send one 
who will give you better proofs than miracles. It is 
expedient for you that I, your personal friend, should 
depart, for I will send one who will form a closer friend- 
ship with you, even inhabiting your bodies, and abiding 
in your souls, who will make your fellowship with me 
and my Father more intimate than my human presence. 
Let the fulness of the Holy Spirit, the Coraforter. be 
the experience of the preacher, and he will no longer 
feebly enunciate gospel truth ; he will no longer hesi- 
tate to proclaim a living Jesus. Our pulpits will no 
longer be afflicted with impotency, but be girded with 
strength : — 

*' What we have felt and seen, 
With confidence we tell; 
And publish to the sons of men 
The signs infallible." 

What are these signs infallible but the testimony of 
consciousness to marvellous changes wrought within our 
souls ? 

When the seventy returned from the trial mission, 
they came in exultation to Christ, because even the 
devils were subject to them in his name. He then 
told them there was a greater and more joyful miracle. 
" Rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven." 
It is the office of the Holy Ghost to attest this marvel- 
lous fact : — 

*' The Spirit answers to the blood, 
And tells me I am born of God." 



296 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

This assurance is so utterly indubitable, that its pos- 
sessor becomes bold in the assertion of gospel truth. 
" And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and 
they spake the word of God with boldness." The 
chain of Christian evidences was complete when the 
clouds received Jesus from the tearful eyes of his dis- 
ciples. But this did not make them bold even unto 
death. " But ye shall receive power from the Holy 
Ghost." This power is attainable by every Christian. 
Every preacher has an especial promise, " Lo, I am 
with you always." Christianity is not waning in spirit- 
ual privileges ; it is not tapering off to a point as cen- 
turies roll by. It is an emanation from an unchanging 
power, Jesus Christ, yesterday, to-day, and forever the 
same. The law of progress, visible in all God's works, 
would demand an increase rather than a diminution of 
spiritual power with the lapse of time. The Spirit 
will abide with you forever. The promise that he will 
enter and abide as a Comforter is to every one who will 
ask the Father in the name of the Son. This fulness 
of the Holy Spirit is not limited, as Mr. Beecher 
teaches, to a few persons endowed by nature with a 
peculiar mental and physical organization. Such a limi- 
tation would destroy all ground of faith in the prom- 
ise for any one ; for each one would suppose that he 
was constitutionally debarred fromi this high experi- 
ence, and so fail to apprehend it by simple faith in 
Jesus Christ. 

4. Let me fortify the statement that we may possess 
an intuitive certainty that Jesus is true, beyond the 
certainty derived from logical proofs, and even more 
satisfactory than the testimony of the senses. St. 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 297 

Peter constructs a splendid climax of Christian evi- 
dences when he demonstrates that "we have not fol- 
lowed cunningly devised fables, when we made known 
unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty, when 
there came such a voice to him from the most excel- 
l:nt glory." Here two senses, sight and hearing, con- 
spire to attest Christ's supernatural person. Then Peter 
rises a step to a higher proof. '' We have a more sure 
word of prophecy, unto which we do well to take heed." 
Here fulfilled prophecy cogently argues the truth of 
Christ. But we have not yet reached the summit of 
the mountain where the cloudless vertical sun pours 
down his overwhelming splendors, rendering doubt im- 
possible. The third and crowning proof of the series 
is an experience, an intuitive conviction of the truth, 
thus poetically expressed, " unto which ye do well to 
take heed, until the day-star arise in your hearts." 
Brethren, has the day-star arisen in your hearts, chasing 
away your night of doubt and sadness? Study the 
scientific proofs of Christianity, as drawn out by the But- 
lers and Paleys of all the Christian ages, but continue 
your patient and diligent research till the day-star arises 
within ; otherwise you will be feeble advocates for Jesus, 
because dimly apprehending the exceeding greatness 
of his power to us-ward who believe. 

5. Lest any one may suppose that I bring a strange 
and dangerous doctrine to your ears, let me appeal to 
the Word of God once more. My assertion is, that the 
fulness of the Holy Ghost is the sunrise of spiritual illu- 
mination and the source of absolute assurance, and that 
this blessing is attainable by all. St. John, in his first 



298 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

epistle to every Christian, says, '' But ye have an unc- 
tion from the Holy One, and ye know all things." Not 
all scientific truth, not all dogmatic truth, but the di- 
vine origin of all revealed truth, and the soul's relation 
to God's law and his love, a conviction clear as noonday 
that sin is forgiven, and King Jesus is alone enthroned 
over the soul. Once how dark to my unanointed eye 
was the following passage : " But the anointing which 
ye have received of him ahidctJi in you, and ye need 
not that any man teach you : but as the same anointing 
teacheth you of all things." '^ TJie anointing teacheth'' 
— a mystery indeed to him on whose head the oil of 
gladness has not been poured, but a glorious reality to 
him on whom the joy of this great salvation has been 
freely bestowed. 

6. But the highest efficiency of the preacher requires 
that his experience be not only possessed, but professed. 
'' The experience of one rational being is of interest to 
all who become cognizant of it." This is because we 
are so constituted as to be similarly affected by like 
causes. Let half a dozen persons far gone with pul- 
monary consumption publish to the world their com- 
plete cure by the same remedy, and the intelligence 
would flash over the wires, across the continent, irradi- 
ating with hope twice ten thousand sick chambers. 
Hence the value of testimony. The entire science of 
medicine has been constructed upon it. The pharma- 
copoeia has been filled by the attestations of cures. 
Who can better authenticate the healing than the pa- 
tient himself } Who better than the renewed and 
sanctified soul can attest his spiritual transfiguration, 
and the power by which it was accomplished ? Experi- 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 299 

ence avowed is one of the chief elements of the preach- 
er's power to demonstrate the divinity of the gospel 
and the reality of its blessings to believing souls. 
Hence St. Paul, the master logician, when, on critical 
occasions, his liberty or even his life hanging on the 
balance of a Roman governor's will, he wanted some- 
thing more cogent than a syllogism, told the story of his 
conversion from a persecutor to a preacher of the faith 
he once destroyed. In fact, his commission, three times 
renewed, was not to preach, but to testify. When the 
omnipresent Jesus, as Bishop Simpson graphically ex- 
presses it, " Standing on picket duty for the little 
church at Damascus, took Saul of Tarsus prisoner," he 
said to him, '' For this purpose I have appeared to thee, 
to make thee a minister and a witness both of these 
things which thou hast seen, and of those things in 
which I will appear unto thee." When after three 
days Ananias came to him, he, by divine inspiration, 
repeated the declaration, " For thou shalt be a witness 
unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard." Years 
afterwards, while slumbering in the castle of Antonia, 
the Lord stood by him, and said, " Be of good cheer, 
Paul : for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so 
must thou bear witness also at Rome." On each of 
these occasions testifying is insisted on. Why .? Be- 
cause it is the most cogent and persuasive preaching. 
A herald is useful to make proclamation of the law 
and of the will of the court ; but make way — here 
comes one more important. He is an unimpeachable 
witness, who has a testimony to give on the suit before 
the judge. All jurists will tell you that one word of 
authentic evidence is worth more than ten thousand 



300 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

words of sophistical, professional pleading. The wit- 
ness is far more important than the advocate. The tes- 
timony can go to the jury without the argument; but 
it will not do to send the argument without the testi- 
mony. Yet I fear that this sad blunder the modern 
Christian church is committing when, through eloquent 
preachers, she sends to the world the argument with- 
out the evidence. It is not often that the witness 
and the advocate are, in our courts, combined in the 
same person. But all jurymen know how much more 
weighty are his words when the advocate is summoned 
from the bar to the witness-stand, and with uplifted 
hands attests to the facts. Here is no professional 
quibbling, no insincere and cunning speech. Oh, if 
every Christian pulpit could be for only one Sabbath 
converted from an advocate's stand to a witness-box,, 
and each Spirit-baptized preacher should say, " Draw 
near, all ye that fear the Lord, and I will tell you what 
he has done for my soul," what a stir there would be 
among the unbelieving world ! I verily believe that 
they would give the verdict of truth to the Man of Cal- 
vary, and falling down would acknowledge that God is 
with us of a very truth. Am I uncharitable when I 
say that Jesus Christ, on trial before the jury of an un- 
believing world, has too many lawyers and too few wit- 
nesses ? Am I justified in saying that the advocate 
who cannot in a moment, at the subpoena of his divine 
client, turn into a witness, has no business to plead in 
this court, and that Jesus has retained none, such.'' 
Should this be the ruling of the court, it is possible 
that many would be obliged to withdraw from the tri- 
bunal. Christ wants a witnessinsf church. He will 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 30I 

have a witnessing ministry. Through all the ages he 
has honored such with abundant fruits, while a merely 
scholastic ministry is a barren fig-tree, awaiting the 
Master's withering curse. The fears of our fathers 
respecting theological schools were not wholly ground- 
less. There is constant danger of depending on mere 
intellectual force instead of spiritual power. 

It is unfortunate that the canons of sacred rhetoric 
which fetter the modern preacher were the outgrowth 
of an age of spiritual decline, when unregenerate men 
sought the priest's office for a piece of bread. Such 
men, having no experience of the all-vitalizing power 
and unspeakable blessedness of the Comforter abiding 
within, endeavored to conceal this glaring defect by 
declaring it an infraction of good taste to display to 
public gaze the deep and sacred mysteries of the soul. 
But the Holy Spirit is a higher authority on points of 
decorum than Lord Chesterfield. He prompted David 
to pour forth his personal experiences in song, so that 
his harp has swayed a thousand-fold more souls than 
did his sceptre. He inspired St. Paul to utter the 
emotions of his inmost soul in every speech and 
epistle, down to his swan-song of victory over death. 
It is a false modesty that robs the preacher of his 
privilege to witness for the Lord Jesus in the pulpit, 
and is the Philistine Delilah who is shearinsf him of 
his locks, and betraying him to his enemies. Others 
deprecate the testimony for Christ in the pulpit be- 
cause they fear that the precious waters of salvation, 
springing up within the soul unto eternal life, are in 
danger of evaporation by exposure to the sunlight. 
Not long since, in the portraiture of a recent popular 



302 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

divine, we are informed that he did not allow the deep 
and sacred experiences of his soul to evaporate in flip- 
pant speech. But the experience which Barnabas had 
— the fulness of the Holy Ghost — did not need to 
be kept dark lest it evaporate ; it was in no more dan- 
ger of such a calamity than the fulness of the Atlantic. 
God does not keep the ocean in a dark closet to pre- 
serve it from evaporation. He pours the sun's full 
blaze upon it, and lifts it into the sky, and diffuses it 
over the continents in refreshing showers. And yet 
the sea does not waste away. The oceanic fulness of 
the Holy Ghost in the preacher's soul is designed to 
evaporate in speech, and to come down like rain upon 
the mown grass. And he whose religion is in danger 
of evanescing, if he should speak of it often in public, 
has not righteousness as the waves of the sea, but as 
the drops of dew. 

7. The fulness of the Holy Ghost is necessary to 
the preservation and efficient use of a great ministerial 
gift possessed, in an eminent degree, by Barnabas. 
His name was changed from Joses to the Son of Exhor- 
tation, because he was so powerful in exhortation. 
Exhortation is a higher gift than preaching. The 
preacher calmly inculcates the truth upon the intellect ; 
the exhorter sways the sensibilities which lie nearer to 
the will, the executive power of the soul. It is greater 
to move than to teadi. A candle can illumine a rock 
of flint, but only an anthracite blast furnace can melt 
it. Gospel preaching can be counterfeited. An unre- 
generate intellect, well read in theology, and trained in 
rhetoric, can preach a popular sermon ; but exhortation 
cannot be imitated. The soul must be all aglow with 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 303 

the live coal from off the divine altar. No sham is 
possible here. This molten stream of persuasion can 
flow from no galvanic phosphorescence of oratorical 
action and intense declamation. The pathos of a soul 
on fire from above, speaking through tears and sobs, 
prayers and entreaties, is an irresistible power which 
the church cannot afford to lose. This gift is not from 
the schools. Culture cannot bestow it. The works on 
homiletics and the professors of sacred rhetoric cannot 
impart it. God has signally demonstrated this in our 
day. When he would raise up a great master of the 
religious sensibilities, he passed by the great colleges, 
Yale and Harvard, the chief theological seminaries, 
Andover and Princeton, and fished up out of the sea 
an illiterate sailor-boy, sent him into Bromfield Lane, 
where the Holy Ghost set him all aflame with Jesus' 
love, and gave him a more than kingly sceptre with 
which to sway men for more than half a century. The 
Holy Ghost made Father Taylor the greatest exhorter 
of his generation. This is no mean gift, as many 
suppose. Peter did not preach, but testified and ex- 
horted on the day of Pentecost. If this gift, which 
has done so much for Methodism, continues in it, it 
must be sought for, not in leaders' meetings, nor in 
Quarterly Conferences, but in the upper chamber in 
Jerusalem. The refined and the vulgar, the rich and 
the poor, can be reached and saved by this gift more 
than by any other. When there are no more sinners 
to be saved, no more believers to be stimulated to climb 
the mount of holiness, young men may despise the gift 
of exhortation. Has not this gift evidently waned 
away just in proportion as the baptism of power has 
become rare in the ministry and laity ? 



304 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

We have endeavored to group the qualifications of a 
successful evangelist under — Character, Creed, and 
Experience. Perhaps there is no better place on earth 
than Boston in which to demonstrate that an experience 
of the renewing Spirit of God conserves both the creed 
and the character. Spiritual decline always precedes 
doctrinal heterodoxy as a necessary antecedent. Decay 
in the heart is followed by decay in the head. They 
who will not retain the divine Spirit in their souls can- 
not retain the divine Christ in their theology. 

"No man can truly say 

That Jesus is the Lord, 
Unless thou take the veil away, 

And breathe the living word ! 
Then, only then, we feel 

Our interest in His blood, 
And cry with joy unspeakable, — 

Thou art my Lord, my God ! " 

If you do not believe St. Paul, perhaps you will be- 
lieve your own eyes,' if you will open them and look 
around you in eastern Massachusetts. Here you will 
find churches planted by the Puritans, in which there 
is now no Lord Jesus, because a hundred years ago, 
when they closed their doors against the seraphic 
Whitefield, there was in them no Holy Ghost. Then 
how painful the evidence that, with the lapse of the 
doctrine of Christ's divinity, these churches, as if on 
an inclined plane of ice, are slipping down into Panthe- 
ism, — the negation of all foundation for ethical distinc- 
tions, and of all safeguards of moral character. I have 
said nothing of intellectual culture as an element in the 
successful preacher. My remarks have presupposed a 



THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY. 305 

mental development suited to this high office. Barna- 
bas was a Levite, a member of the priestly or quasi- 
priestly order. The clerisy of the Jews were appointed 
by God, not only to conserve the sacred oracles and true 
worship, but to raise the people to a higher intellectual 
and moral life as natural educators. On the basis of 
this sacerdotal training, his distinctive Christian quali- 
ties were superinduced. Yet I am far from affirming 
that the time is past when the Spirit may send men 
from the plough to the pulpit : — 

*' Yes, if the Lord His mind reveal 

Even to the meanest of the throng ; 
Their Father sends by whom He will, 

And teaches babes the gospel song. 
Not to the prophets' school confined, 

He gives to the unlearned His word; 
And lo, they now declare His mind, 

And husbandmen proclaim their Lord ! ' ' 

We believe in unloosing every tongue, whether male 
or female, and in giving to every light a candlestick 
corresponding to its intensity and illuminating power. 

Brethren, on the subject of the fulness of the Holy 
Spirit as a possible and sudden attainment in modern 
times, I am not here to theorize, to philosophize, to 
dogmatize, but to testify. Let me turn my pulpit into 
a witness-stand for one moment. Although this school 
may teach that testimony in the pulpit should be of an 
indefinite and impersonal sort, I must speak for myself. 
Six months ago I made the discovery that I was living 
in the pre-pentecostal state of religious experience, — 
admiring Christ's character, obeying his law, and in a 
degree loving his person, but without the conscious 



306 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

blessing of the Comforter. I settled the question of 
privilege by a study of St. John's Gospel and St. Paul's 
Epistles, and earnestly sought for the Comforter. I 
prayed, consecrated, confessed my state, and believed 
Christ's word. Very suddenly, after about three weeks' 
diligent search, the Comforter came with power and 
great joy to my heart. He took my feet out of the 
realm of doubt and weakness, and planted them for- 
ever on the Rock of assurance and strength. My joy 
is a river of limpid waters, brimming and daily over- 
flowing the banks, unspeakable and full of glory. God 
is my everlasting light, and the days of my mourning 
are ended. I am a freed man. Christ is my Emanci- 
pator, bringing me into the glorious liberty of the sons 
of God. My eyes are anointed so that I can see 
wonders in God's law. My efficiency in Christ's ser- 
vice is greatly multiplied. In the language of Dr. 
Payson, I daily exclaim, "Oh, that I had known this 
twenty years ago ! " But I thank God that after a 
struggle of more than a score of years — 

" I have entered the valley of blessing so sweet, 

And Jesus abides with me there ; 
And His Spirit and blood make my cleansing complete, 

And His perfect love casteth out fear. 
O come to this valley of blessing so sweet, 

Where Jesus doth fulness bestow ; 
And believe, and receive, and confess Him, 

That all His salvation may know." 



THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 307 



XXXIX. 

THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 

\_Preached at Old Orchard in Attgust, 1883.] 

The preacher of the evening has been greatly edified 
during this faith-convention, by the Methodistic earnest- 
ness of a Quaker preaching Wesleyan doctrines with 
jubilant hallelujahs. The audience may be surprised 
this evening to hear a Methodist, in a very quiet style, 
enforce upon your hearts a prominent doctrine of the 
Friends, from a Quaker text found in Isa. xxxii. 17, 
"And the work of righteousness shall be peace ; and the 
effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for- 
ever." Also (Heb. X. 22), Let us draw near with a 
true heart in full assurance of faith." The soul that 
is perfectly saved from doubt, standing on the sunlit 
mountain-top of full assurance, is in the enjoyment of 
God's full salvation. We know an evangelical minister 
who secured the revision of the creed of his church in 
order to cut out the doctrine of assurance, because he 
said that '' it strongly squinted toward the offensive 
doctrines of the higher life." There are, in fact, four 
roads into the experience of full salvation. As there 
was a river that went out of Eden, parted into four, so 
that Eden would be found by following up any one of 
these streams; so there are four streams flowing from 



308 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

the paradise of God's complete salvation from sin. 
Trace any one of these to its source, and you will find 
yourself in that spiritual Eden : — 

" The land of corn, and wine, and oil, 
Favored with God's peculiar smile, 

With every blessing blest; 
There dwells the Lord, our righteousness, 
And keeps his own in perfect peace, 

And everlasting rest." 

The first of these we may call the Methodist river. 
They, among modern Christians, were providentially 
called to explore this river, and to enter the goodly 
land to which it leads. In other words, a sense of that 
'' infection of nature that doth remain, yea, in them that 
are regenerated," — see Article IX. of the XXXIX. 
Articles, — and an earnest desire for its extinction, is 
the pathway which has led some, in all ages, into that 
soul-rest which follows the extinction of sin. Hence, 
the Methodists did not apply for a patent, as they were 
not the original discoverers. The second river received 
its name (Perfect Love) from the beloved disciple. 
Many a believer since John's day, distressed with a 
sense of partial and painfully divided love to Jesus, 
has sought the remedy, and has found that the Holy 
Spirit, who dropped from the skies the first spark of 
love divine in his heart, can raise it to a flame so in- 
tense as to make the whole affectional nature glow as 
a furnace with a sevenfold heat, in which nothing con- 
trary to love can abide for a moment. A modern St. 
John (Wesley) has courageously buoyed out the chan- 
nel of this river, and called it by its own name, Chris- 



THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 3O9 

tian Perfection. See his '' Plain Account," a tract full 
of the very marrow of the gospel. The third river 
may be called the Calvinian river, because many a dis- 
ciple of the great theologian of Geneva has entered into 
the spiritual paradise by following up this stream to its 
source. A desire for the pentacostal gift, the incoming 
and abiding of the Comforter, the anointing or baptism 
of the Holy Ghost, the endowment of power for the 
most efficient service in the Lord's vineyard, has led 
many, who feared evangelical perfection or perfect love 
as rank fanaticism, to pray with an all-surrendering faith 
in Jesus, for the fulness of the Spirit ; and, in answer to 
the prayer of faith, they have been filled with the unut- 
terable fulness of God. Of course they were entirely 
cleansed, for the Holy Ghost cannot fill a soul without 
sanctifying it. (Read the experience of President Ed- 
wards and his wife, David Brain erd, Edward Payson, 
and D. L. Moody.) 

The fourth river we may style the Quaker river — 
Full Assurance. Thousands of souls, worried by doubts 
and distressed by uncertainty, have sought for deliver- 
ance and have found salvation from doubt. But they 
have found that this is only one grape of the rich 
cluster of Eshcol put into their hands. Full assurance 
is inseparably united with entire sanctification and per- 
fect love ; and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, with the 
power and joy and soul-rest which flow therefrom. 

By full assurance we mean a certainty, excluding all 
doubt, that I am now a child of God. The Spirit who 
imparts this wonderful knowledge of present salvation 
is called the spirit of adoption. " For ye received not 
the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but the Spirit of 



3IO HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." This is 
not mediate through the inspired Word of God, but 
immediate and direct to our consciousness by a contact 
of the divine Spirit with the human. ''The Spirit 
HIMSELF beareth witness with our spirit [two witness- 
es], that we are children of God." 

Many have explained the witness of the Spirit thus : 
the Spirit has secured in the Bible a record of the 
marks of the regenerate state. The believer in Jesus 
reads this record, and then looks into his own heart, 
and, if he finds these marks there, he infers that he is 
born of the Spirit. This is a perfectly proper thing to 
be done ; but in order to be satisfactory, it must be 
preceded by an impression by the Spirit of these infal- 
lible marks. For instance, how can I be sure that love, 
the first fruit of the Spirit, exists in me, till I am di- 
vinely certified that I have been taken out of the class 
on whom God frowns, — for he is angry with the wicked 
every day, and I have been wicked, — and have been put 
into the class which God loves ? I cannot love God till 
I am sure that he loves me and has pardoned my sins. 
This must be certified to me by the blessed carrier-dove 
of the skies, — the Holy Spirit. Without this telegram 
from the throne of God to my personal consciousness, 
I can have no valid basis for my inference that I am a 
son of God by adoption. The Bible does not contain 
this important fact. The convict in the State prison 
cannot ascertain his pardon by studying the general 
statutes. He must have a document direct from the 
governor authenticating his pardon. 

This corresponds to the direct witness of the Spirit, 
sent forth, not into the Holy Scriptures, but " into our 



THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 3II 

hearts, crying, Abba, Father." (Gal. iv. 6.) This is 
thus defined by Wesley : " It is an inward impression 
of the soul whereby the Spirit of God directly wit- 
nesses to my spirit that I am a child of God ; that Jesus 
Christ hath loved me and given himself for me, and 
that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am rec- 
onciled to God." This affords a firm ground for the 
process of inference, called the indirect witness of the 
Spirit, because it is reasoning from the fruits of the 
Spirit to the regenerating work of the Spirit ; from 
effect to cause. This distinction and this precedence 
of the direct witness are strictly philosophical. All rea- 
soning must proceed from admitted truths. These, in 
the last analysis, are truths intuitively grasped by the 
mind. The soul has a set of spiritual intuitions which 
become active under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. 
These intuitions are the bases of all real spiritual 
knowledge. The truths of the Bible are not real to 
the soul till they have been made real by the spirit 
of truth, or the spirit of reality, as it might have been 
translated. Before this, the Bible contains hearsay 
knowledge to which the reader is incompetent to give 
testimony. But when the Spirit gives the believer real 
knowledge of God and of his Son, he is qualified to be 
a witness for Christ. The reason for the small number 
of witnesses in many of our churches is, because 
there are only a few who have^ an experimental knowl- 
edge of God. They have not found out that he is real. 
There is much second-hand spiritual knowledge and 
little first-hand. 

The direct witness of the Spirit is usually intermit- 
tent in the early stages of Christian experience. 



312 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

Whether this is through variations in faith, or because 
of some hidden law of our spiritual nature, or of our 
bodily organism, is unknown. Young Christians are 
needlessly alarmed by these fluctuations. If, after 
careful self-examination, there is found no condemna- 
tion for any act of wilful sin, the person should go for- 
ward, walking by faith, till the cloud withdraws and the 
sun pours his rays again directly into the soul. This is 
the time, not onlv for heart-searchins;, but for Bible- 
searching ; to get a new fulcrum for the lever of faith. 
It has been thought by some Christian philosophers 
that these intervals in the direct and joyful assurance 
of salvation are needful for the most rapid and health- 
ful spiritual growth. Then the soul searches out the 
promises and piles them up as a pyramid on which to 
stand and stretch out the hands and grasp the realiza- 
tion of still higher spiritual blessings. 

In that advanced experience called full assurance, 
there are fluctuations in degrees of ecstatic joy, but 
never a descent into the region of doubt. The witness 
to adoption is not intermittent, but abiding in the heart 
of every one who claims his full heritage in Jesus Christ 
in the Pentecostal dispensation. Hence the strength 
of such a Christian. Doubt always weakens. The in- 
efficiency of multitudes of Christians may be traced to 
their doubts. Until doubt is permanently allayed, no 
one can have 

*' A heart at leisure from itself, 
To soothe and sympathize" 

with awakened sinners, or to enter vigorously and suc- 
cessfully upon the work of rescuing the perishing. 
Thus doubt prevents the highest usefulness. It also 



THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 313 

saddens the soul. Fog promotes melancholy ; sunshine 
sows joy. The happiest company of people with whom 
I have ever mingled thus far in my earthly pilgrimage, I 
have found in this faith convention. I have thought 
that possibly the by-standers might falsely accuse us as 
they did the first Christian faith convention in the 
upper room — '* these men are filled with new wine." 
We plead guilty of the charge. We are filled with the 
new wine of the kingdom, the joy of the Holy Ghost. 

We urge all Christians to seek full assurance, because 
doubt is full of peril. It tends to indecision in the 
presence of temptation. Doubt leans toward unholi- 
ness ; for he who doubts his sonship to a king will not 
act with the dignity and purity of one who knows that 
he is a prince of the blood royal. There is philosophy 
in the reply of a negro boy when told by a neighbor 
that he had experienced a change of heart because of 
his amended outward life. The young African replied : 
" I do not know that I have been born again ! That is 
not the kind of religion I want ; a religion that I may 
get and not know, I might lose and not miss." It is a 
great gain to have a clear, definite, and sharply defined 
beginning of the Christian course. This was one of the 
secrets of the power of early Methodism, and of early 
Quakerism as well. Wesley testifies that ninety-nine 
per cent of those converted under the preaching of the 
early Wesleyans had the direct witness to their pardon, 
and could tell the exact time of their translation out of 
darkness into the marvellous light of salvation. Says 
he : " The general rule is, they who are in the favor of 
God know they are so." Hence he urged the scriptural 
injunction as to testimony : " Let the redeemed of the 



SH HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

Lord say so." To the question, ''Will not this dis- 
courage mourners ? " he answers : " Yes, it will dis- 
courage them from stopping where they are; from 
resting before they have Christ revealed in them. But 
it will encourage to seek in the gospel way ; to ask till 
they receive pardon and peace. And we are to encour- 
age them, not by telling them they are in the favor of 
God, though they do not know it (such a word as this 
we would never utter in a congregation, at the peril of 
our souls) ; but by assuring them, every one that seek- 
eth findeth." 

Yet he did not teach that every doubter is lost. 
There is a difference between unbelief and doubt. Un- 
belief paralyzes the soul so that there is no movement 
Godward ; doubts distract so that such movement is 
difficult and painful, yet possible. Unbelief damns, 
doubt damages, but does not destroy if we live on the 
right side of it. What is living on the right side of 
doubts ? Live as if you had them not. Christian and 
Pliable fell into the Slough of Despond. Christian 
wallowed till he got out on the right side, toward the 
Celestial City. Pliable got out on the wrong side, 
toward the City of Destruction. The one lived on the 
right and the other on the wrong side of doubt ; the 
one was saved, the other lost. The serpent-bitten Is- 
raelite, though doubting the efficacy of the brazen ser- 
pent, had faith enough to turn his glazed and dying 
eyes toward it, and was healed. Naaman was brimful 
of doubts when he turned the head of his Syrian caval- 
cade toward the despised Jordan ; but he had faith suf- 
ficient to reach the river and bathe seven times and 
wash away his leprosy. So a soul may be worried by 



THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 315 

doubts all through life, and enter heaven at last, because 
he has had faith enough to keep his feet moving toward 
its open gates. A ship may sail across the Atlantic in 
a dense fog, and enter Boston harbor in safety. Yet it 
is much more comfortable and safe sailing under a clear 
sky, taking the requisite daily observations. For this 
ugly fact cannot be kept out of the sailor's mind, that 
many a ship sailing in the fog has been wrecked by 
dashing against a rock or an iceberg. 

Let us now proceed to answer the inquiry, why so 
many Christians are destitute of that secret of the Lord 
which Enoch had in Old Testament times, and which 
is promised in far larger measure under the dispensa- 
tions of the Holy Spirit. 

I. Superficial conversion : I felt badly, went to an 
altar or inquiry-room, felt better, and was told that this 
was regeneration. So I joined the church ; but I walk 
in darkness almost as dense as before. I was told to 
trust the written word of Christ, who says : " Him that 
cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." Precious 
words these, but often misapplied. All the promises 
are designed to awaken faith in the pentitent soul by 
showing that God is able and willing to save now ; but 
no one of them contains the record of your personal 
pardon. You are to trust the written word of God till 
you have the spoken word of the Spirit in your heart. 
The only advice we dare give to a seeking soul is this : 
" Trust God for Jesus' sake to do the work, till the 
Spirit certifies that it is done." Saving faith is a new 
exercise to the seeking soul, springing out of real re- 
pentance of sin. I cannot in my advice to him, assume 
the infallibility of his mental judgment of his own in- 



3l6 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

ward states and spiritual exercises, and urge him to 
jump to the conclusion that he really does fulfil the 
conditions of salvation, and that Jesus does now save 
him. This is the prerogative of the Spirit of adoption. 
The Divine efficiency comes in at this point, assuring 
the soul that he has truly abandoned sin and accepted 
Christ, and may now grasp the assurance of pardon. 
Without the Spirit's testimony no one has in the writ- 
ten Word any ground for believing that God has saved 
or does now save the soul. Saving faith is not a leap 
in the dark, as some teach, but a firm stepping upon 
God's recorded willingness and ability to grant present 
deliverance from the guilt of sin, till we step upon the 
last stone which is the Spirit's testimony — " He doeth 
it." 

Many have been advised to assume that their repent- 
ance and faith are evangelical, and to reckon that Jesus 
now pardons, when this was not the fact. They have 
reckoned without their host, and have been put into an 
exceedingly embarrassing attitude toward Christ before 
the world. Some of these, under the Spirit's guidance, 
despite the bad human advice, stumble into salvation. 
But many others, after groping in darkness a long time, 
give up the struggle, and drop back into sin. But an- 
other large class cling to their Christian profession and 
make up a mass of inert and lifeless members found 
in all our churches, who have stopped short of a satis- 
factory assurance of sins forgiven, and vainly imagine 
that they are saved. 

2. Others are destitute of assurance because they 
have insensibly lost the evangelical spirit and slipped 
back into legalism, — a trust in the merit of good works 



THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 317 

instead of a constant trust in Jesus Christ. He who 
trusts in his worl<:s is always afraid that he has not 
done enough to merit salvation. Hence, he never 
quite reaches the point of an absolute assurance. This 
is the sad condition of those trained in Romanism — 
that stupendous system of legalism. But many Prot- 
estants have unconsciously sunken down into the 
same error. Christianity is viewed as a series of duties 
to be done. But as no one can do them perfectly, no 
one can be joyfully coniident that he is saved. On the 
other hand, if salvation is a free gift to the believer in 
Jesus, there is a definite point of time when this gift 
is consciously received. Hence, the evangelical spirit 
is promotive of assurance, and the legal spirit fosters 
interminable doubt. 

3. Many are now destitute of assurance who once 
enjoyed its blessedness. The cares of this world have 
choked the spiritual life. '' While thy servant was 
busy here and there, he [the Holy Spirit] was gone." 
Distant following of Jesus stifles the voice of the Com- 
forter. " I am the light of the world : he that fol- 
loweth me shall not walk in darkness." Here our 
adorable Saviour compares himself to the glorious orb 
of day. The planet Mercury, which keeps close to 
him, is always moving in the most intense light ; while 
Neptune, on the outermost verge of the solar system, 
gropes along his chilly orbit in almost rayless night. 
Cloudless assurance is the heritage of complete conse- 
cration and the most intimate communion with Christ, 
accompanied by a careful and close following in his 
footsteps. Thus Enoch walked with God, and he had 
this testimony, that his ways pleased him. This pre- 



3l8 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

cious testimony is more easily lost than regained. It 
has been said that " spiritual darkness comes on horse- 
back and goes away on foot." 

4. Since assurance is the work of the Holy Spirit, 
this blessing is rarely enjoyed where the personality 
and offices of the third person of the Trinity are not 
magnified. There is darkness in the pews because 
there is no lamp shining in the pulpit. The lamp is 
not lighted in many a pulpit because the scanty supply 
of oil has already been consumed. The oil has failed 
in the "candlestick all of gold," because the two olive- 
trees — a clear justification from past sins, and entire 
sanctification from inbred sin — are not growing, one 
" on the right side of the bowl, and the other on the 
left thereof."- — ^ Zech. iv. 3. 

5. Others, who are favored with the light of full 
Christian instruction, fail of the precious grace of full 
assurance because of a lack of appropriating faith. 
This has been aptly defined as an underscoring of the 
''me" and "my" in the divine promises. St. Paul 
exercised this kind of faith. "I have been crucified 
with Christ ; alive no longer am I, but alive is Christ 
in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh, I live 
in faith on the Son of God, who loved me and gave 
himself up for me. — Gal. ii. 20, literally transla4:ed. 
Mary Magdalene exercised appropriating faith, when, at 
the open tomb of Jesus, she said, " They have taken 
away my Lord." " Tell me where thou hast laid him, 
and I will take him away." She talks as if she was 
the sole owner of Jesus Christ ; and she was, for her 
grateful heart had appropriated him entirely to herself. 
He has the ability to give himself undivided to every 



THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 319 

fully believing soul which claims its complete heritage 
in him, 

6. Not a few Christians walk amid shadows when 
they might walk in the noontide of assurance, because 
they have seen the narrow gate of entire sanctification 
open before them and heard a voice saying, " Enter in 
at the strait gate," and, seeing the sacrifices to be 
made, and the idols to be unclasped, they have refused 
to obey. An eclipse of faith has ensued. The sun of 
assurance shines not upon the path of conscious dis- 
obedience. The converse is true also. '' Light is sown 
for the righteous." Joseph Cook challenges sceptics 
to apply the scientific method of experiment to Chris- 
tianity. '' On the condition that you make an affec- 
tionate, immediate, total, and irreversible self-surrender 
to Christ as both Saviour and Lord, the light of God 
will stream through and through your soul." Try it, 
ye who desire full assurance. 

If you would know the strength of the scriptural 
proofs of this doctrine, take your Concordance and see 
how often the words "know" and "knowledge" occur 
after the day of Pentecost. Study St. John's frequently 
occurring "we know," in his first epistle. Study Dean 
Alford's version of the Greek term, epignosis, — full 
knowledge, — " that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
the Father of glory, would give unto you the spirit of 
wisdom and revelation in full knowledge of him. — Eph. 
i. 17, "Until we all attain unto the unity of the faith, 
and of the perfect knowledge of the Son of God." 
— Eph. iv. 13. Here faith is declared to be the path 
to " perfect knowledge ; " for there are not two unities, 
but one, — faith mounting up till it is merged in per- 



320 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

feet knowledge. In all spiritual realizations we are to 
believe before we can know. '' That ye may be filled 
with the thorough knowledge of his will." — Col. i. 9. 
Alford's Notes. " Unto all the riches of the full 
assurance of the understanding, unto the thorough 
knowledge of the mystery of God, even Christ." — 
Col. ii. 2. " Being renewed into perfect knowledge 
after the image of him that created him." — Col. iii. 
10. "Who willeth all men to be saved, and to come 
to the certain knowledge of the truth." — i Tim. ii. 4. 
" And never yet able to come to the full knowledge of 
the truth." — 2 Tim. iii. 7. 

The revision has uncovered to English readers a won- 
derful text, which has been obscured for nearly three 
centuries by a faulty translation. '' I am the good 
shepherd, and I know mine own, and mine own know 
me ; even as the Father knoweth me, and I know the 
Father." — John x. 14. Oar knowledge of Christ may 
be as certain and exclusive of doubt as the Son's in- 
tuition of the Father. This certitude is the glorious 
privilege of every persevering believer in Jesus Christ. 
This is that spiritual manifestation of himself which he 
promised to every believer whose love to him is evinced 
by keeping his commandments. (John xiv. 21.) This 
manifestation of Christ is no vision or phantom ad- 
dressed to the natural eye, but an awakening of the 
soul's spiritual perception to an undoubted and joyful 
realization that Jesus lives and loves even me. The 
heart of your preacher is a witness to this manifesta- 
tion almost uninterruptedly during the past thirteen 
years. It is blessed indeed. Language fails to de- 
scribe it. 



THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 32 1 

Before bringing this sermon to a close we will state, 
but not fully discuss, another view of full assurance. 
Some define this to include not only the certainty of 
present sonship, but the certainty of eternal salvation. 
Some excellent people, whose testimony it would be 
difficult to impeach, have witnessed to the possession 
of such an assurance, covering not only the present 
but the endless future, and hence called the full assur- 
ance of hope. This testimony your preacher cordially 
receives ; but he hesitates to preach it as the privilege 
of all God's children. It is possible that we are not 
all to be trusted with so rich a treasure. It might 
turn our heads ; it might be greatly abused and per- 
verted into a motive to a loose and unwatchful life in 
the case of many believers. Hence the possibility of 
losing the treasure of assurance of present salvation 
is a healthful safeguard. The Arminian training of 
your preacher probably has much to do with his diffi- 
culty in preaching assurance of eternal salvation as the 
privilege of all believers. This doctrine, it seems to 
him, must stand or fall with that of personal uncondi- 
tional election. Hence our Calvinistic brethren have 
less difficulty in receiving this doctrine ; though some 
of them, if we read them aright, limit this kind of as- 
surance to the '' electi electorum, — the elect of the 
elect," — and thus agree with your preacher in limit- 
ing it to a few favored souls. We cannot better state 
our views than to adopt those of that great reformer 
and Christian philosopher, John Wesley : — 

I. "I believe a few, but very few, Christians have an assurance 
from God of everlasting salvation ; and that is the thing which the 
2i^osX\e iQrvs\sf7dl assjirance of hope. 



322 HALF-HOURS WITH ST. PAUL. 

2. "I believe more have such an assurance of being now in the 
favor of God, as excludes all doubt and fear; and this, if I do not 
mistake, the apostle means by the full assura7ice of faith. 

3. '* I believe a consciousness of being in the favor of God 
(which I do not term/)/// assicraiice, since it is frequently weak- 
ened, nay, perhaps interrupted, by returns of doubt or fear) is the 
common privilege of Christians fearing God and working righteous- 
ness. Yet I do not affirm there are not exceptions to this general 
rule ; but, I believe, this is usually owing either to disorder of body 
or to ignorance of the gospel promises. Therefore, I have not, 
for many years, thought a consciousness of acceptance to be essen- 
tial to justifying faith.*" 

(Fletcher indorses No. i. See his "Checks" II. 659.) 
In indorsing these words of Wesley, we greatly pre- 
fer to say, in No. 3, ordinary state, instead of '' common 
privilege ; " for Christians are generally living far be- 
low their privilege. Hence all in the third class might, 
by a proper exercise of faith, move up into the second, 
with the exception, perhaps, of those incapacitated by 
some ''disorder of body." 

A broader discussion of this topic, from which we 
were shut out by lack of time, would have included the 
deeper question of the truth of Christianity itself. 
For all religious doubts resolve themselves into two 
fundamental questions : — 

1. Is the Christian system true i^ 

2. Am I savingly included in the system } 

This may be illustrated by two similar questions re- 
specting a bank-note : — 

1. Is this bank sound } 

2. Is this note a genuine issue therefrom ? 

The first question, purposely omitted in our discus- 



THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 323 

sion, can be successfully answered, as well as the 
second, on one's knees in self-surrendering faith in 
Jesus Christ. Obedient faith is the short road out of 
all doubt. ''If any man willeth to do his will, he shall 
know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether 
I speak from myself." 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



Chap. 


/ 'erse. 


Page. 


C/ia/>. 


P'erse. 


Page. 


Chap. 


Verse 


. Page. 


Genesis. — 








Psalms. — 






Matthew - 


- Co7ithined. 


I. 


14-19 




202 


II. 


2 . . 


. 118 


VII. 


20 


■ 245 


XVII. 


I . . 




166 


XIV. 


1-3 • 


• 154 




21-23 


• 277 


Exodus.— 








XXXVII. 


23, 24 


• 154 




22 


. 247 


IV. 


25 • 




163 


XLIV. 


22 


• 67 




22, 2^ 


. 248, 


XXIII. 


31 




221 


LI. 


12 


. 288 






249, 251, 


XXXIV. 


29-35 




176 


XCV. 


7-11 


. 210 


VIII. 


3 • 


. . Z65 










CXIX. 


32 


. 156 




17 


• 244 


Leviticus. 




















XVI. 


32 




iiS 




96 . 


• 155 


X. 


1-4 


• 247 


XXVI. 


3-13 . 




241 


ECCLESIASTES. 






I, 4 


• 249 










VII. 


20 


• 152 




8 . 


. 265 


Numbers. - 


- 












XIV. 


17 


. 200 


XIV. 


23 • 




210 


Canticles. 


— 




XXIII. 


37 


• ■ 34^ 




36, 37 




238 


V. 


10 


. 19S 


XXVI. 


38 


. 272 


XXIV. 


4-J3 • 


. 


248 


Isaiah.— 






XXVII. 


46 


. 196 


Deuteronomy. — 






XXXII. 


17 • 


• 307 


XXVIII. 


19, 2C 


^ . 123 


I. 


21, 22 


. 


214 


XL. 


6-8 . 


• 155 


Mark. — 






VI. 


4, 5 


160 


188 




31 • 


. 200 


VIII. 


24 


• 203 


XIII. 


16 . 


. 


90 


L. 


10 


• '94 


XVI. 


14 


. 205 


XXX. 


6 46, 


161 


,189 


LIII. 


4 . . 


• 244 


Luke. — 

I. 














LVIII. 


1-4 . 


75 






Joshua. — 














20 


• 159 


IV. 


10 




211 


Jeremiah. - 


— 




IV. 


18 


. 118 


I Samuel. - 


_ 






IX. 


25 • 


. 164 




33-41 


• 244 


IX. 


16 




118 


Daniel. — 






XIII. 


II 


• 91 


X. 


10-12 




248 


IX. 


25, 26 


. 118 




32 


• 64 


I Kings.— 








Hose A. — 






John {Gospel').— 




VIII. 


4'' • 




151 


XI. 


14 . 


• 194 


I. 


32, 33 


. 118 


XIX. 


16 




118 


Zechariah 


_ 




Ilf. 


6 . 


. 146 


2 Chronicles. — 






IV. 


3 


• 318 


V. 

VII. 


44 
23 


. 218 
• 163 


XVI. 


9 • • 




85 


Matthew. 


— 




VIII. 


12 


192,317 


Jen. - 








V. 


43-4S 


46,215 


IX. 


41 


• 259 


IX. 


20 




153 




48 . 


3, 22 


X. 


14 


• 320 










^ 325 











326 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



CJtap. Verse. Page 
John {Gospel) Continued. 



XIV. 



XV. 
XVI. 



XVII. 



Acts. — 

IV. 
IX. 
X. 
XL 
XV. 
XVI. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXVI. 

XXVIII. 

Romans. — 



27 

38 
24 
9 • 

7-j 

23 

19, 20 
33 



II. 
IIL 



VI. 



VII. 
VIII. 



5, 9 



19 
7-25 



205, 207 
320 
259 
204 

195 
207 
171 
247 

118 

14 

118 

27S 

204 

252 

42 

4 

61 

60 

13 

299 

299 

102 

299 

248 

247 

51 
133 

164 

^54 

134 

264, 265 

268, 275 

. 269 

96, 158 

6 

10, 42, 69, 

63, 168 

106 

72,73,92 

259 



CJiap. 


Verse. 


Page. 


Chap. 


Verse. 


Page. 


Romans — Continiied. 




2 Corinthians — 


Contin- 


VIII. 


37 • 


95, 


158 


7ied. 






IX. 


1-3 ■ 




47 


IX. 


8 . . 


. 158 


X. 


2 




134 




14 . 


. 98 


XIV. 


7,8 




59 


X. 


I . . 


• 125 


XV. 


13 




14 


XL 


3 • . 


. 109 




29 




179 




23 • 


• 67 




30-32 




37 


XIL 


24 . 
15 • 


• 47 
. 48 


I CORINTHI 


ANS. — 






XIII. 


7, 9 • 


• 15 


I. 


21 




119 








II. 


13 




78 




9 . . 


• 115 




14 




77 


Galatians 


— 






22 




49 


I. 


10 . 


. 62 


III. 


I 




208 




16 . 


115,179 




1-3 




73 


II. 


18 . 


4 




3 




79 




20 


9, 318, 


IV. 


16 




43 




42, 52, 72 


VI. 


15-20 




91 


III. 


3 • • 


. 18 


IX. 


27 


66 


277 




22 . 


• 30 


X. 


6 




233 




24 • 


• 199 




12 




276 


IV. 


3 • . 


. 252 




32 




102 




6 . . 


. 311 




33 


49, 61 




15-19 


• 51 


XL 


I . 


43,73 




21-31 


. 209 


XII. 


3 • 




120 


V. 


17 • 


68, 74 




.4-11 




243 




22 


30,83 




9 ■ 




246 




24 . 


. 69 




II 




245 


VI. 


14 10, 42, 72 




31 




98 


Ephesians. 







XIII. 


1-13 




84 


I. 


4 . • 


84, 103 




2 . 




248 




16-19 


• 31 




12 




145 




17 • 


140,319 


XV. 


31 




67 




i3 . 


• 33 




58 




104 




19 . 


. 98 


2 Corinthians. — 






TI. 


6 . . 


. 64 


L 


II 




37 




7 • • 


. 98 




12 




109 


III. 


10 


• 24 


11. 


4 . 




48 




14-21 


. 18 




14 




95 




19 . 


98, 206 


IIL 


7-18 


177, 71 




20 


. 158 




10 




98 


IV. 


11-14 


. 58 


IV. 


2 . 




44 




18, 19 


■ 37 




6 . 




209 




12 


• "5 




7, 17 




98 




33 J 


08, 141, 


V. 


17 




209 






319 


VI. 


6 . 




109 




32 . 


. 123 




II 




156 


V. 


9 • • 


. 130 


VII. 


I . 


• 91 


161 




2; 


. 103 




4 • 


• 97 


158 


VI. 


5 • ■ 


• 33 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



327 



Chap. 


Verse 


Page. 


Chap. 


Verse 


. Page. 


Chap. 


Verse. 


Page. 


Philippians 


. — 






2 Thessalonians 


- C 


OH- 


James 


— 






I. 


3> 4 




26 


tinned. 










I. 


4 • . 


90 




8 . 




50 


III. 


> • 




38 






27 • 


lOI 




9 • 


38, 


135 


I Timothy. 


— 








III. 


17 • 


126 




10 




102 


I. 


5 • 




84 




IV. 


5 • . 


149 




19 




38 




14 


97, 


158 




V. 


15 • 


246 




25 




14 




15 




67 






16 . 


247 


11. 


15 . 




103 


II. 


I . 




48 






17 • 


246 




20 




81 




4 • 


143, 


320 


I Peter.— 






III. 


3-1 1 




44 




15 • 




109 




I. 


2 . . 


106 




4-8 




59 


III. 


2 . 




103 






5 . • 


270 




8. 




21 


IV. 


12 




IIO 






13 • 


114 




12 




63 


V. 


7 • 




103 






19 . 


100 




14 




41 


VI. 


4 • 




103 






24,25 


155 




15, 1/ 




42 




14 




lOI 




III. 


8 . . 


123 




20 




33 


2 Timothy. 


— 








IV. 


12 . 


195 




21 




115 


I. 


12 




58 




V. 


10 


150 


IV. 


I . 




82 


II. 


18 




64 


2 Pet 


IR. — 








5 • 




125 




24 




125 




I. 


1-3 • 


137 




9 • 




43 




25 




137 






8 . . 


144 




13 




57 


III. 


7 ■ 


144 


320 






16-20 


297 


COLOSSIANS 


— 












117 






19 . 


172 


I. 


9, 10 




135 


IV. 


5. 17 




128 




II. 


20 


137 




9 • 




320 




8 . 




65 




III. 


14 100-103 




22 




103 




18 




58 


I JoH^ 


._ 






II. 


24 




49 




20 . 


247 


248 




I. 


6, 8, 10 


256 


2, 


129, 


142 


Titus.— 






















320 


I. 


I . 




139 






7 


265 




II 


88, 


162 


III. 


4 • 




125 






8 . 14 


7,256 




15 


• 93, 


163 


Philemon. 











II. 


9 


265 
148 


III. 


I . 


. 


64 




22 




38 




I 




9 • 




163 


Hebrews. - 












4, 9 • 


256 




10 




142 


II. 


II 




264 






5 


268 




12 




124 


IV. 


i-ii 




210 






20 


. 119 




14 

3 • 




III 


V. 


13 




"3 






27 . 12 


1,298 


IV. 




38 




14 




28 




III. 


9 . I. 


t8,257 




14 




252 


VI. 


I . 

I I 




i>3 
129 
71 




IV. 


26 
3 


8,273 
. 263 


I Thessalonians. 


— 




VII. 


19, 2. 








7 


. 266 


I. 

II. 


5 • 
4 • 




130 
62 


IX. 


25 
9. '4 




91 

71 






12 

18 . 


. 267 
5,267 




7 • 




125 


X. 


2 . 




71 






17,181 


5o, 198 




7,8, 


II) 


49 




14 




264 






20 . 


. 256 




10 . . 


^4, 67 


. 72 




22 


128 


307 




V. 


17 • 


. 270 


III. 


12, I 


3 • 


84 




26 




135 






18 . 


270 


IV. 


3, 4 




log 


XII. 


10 




109 


Jude. 


— 






V. 


23 • 


^3,8= 


,89 




14 


107 


1 08 






19 . 


• 73 


2 Thessalonians. 


— 






18, IC 


) • 


38 






24 29, ( 


)9, 103 


II. 


12 




245 


XIII. 


5 • 




196 


Revelation. — 






i:? 




106 




S . 




205 




I. 


6 


21 



328 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



Clui\ Terse. Page. 

Revelation- — Co7iti7nu " 

II. 7 



III. 



Oiap. I'erse 


Page. 


Revelation — Contitated. 


III. iS 


iig, 204 


21 


• 173 


VII. 14 


• 170 


XII. II 


94, 174 


XX. 14 


. 170 


XXI. 7 


• 174 



CJiap. 1 'erse. Page. 

Revelation — Continued. 

XX r. S . . 238 

173 
179 
264 
165 



XXII. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2005 

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